Open Actions, Secret Sides
by Maz101
Summary: "So Commander, any idea why one of your team just made off with our star witness in a drugs and murder trial." Danny Williams discovers that vengeance has no foresight. Action/Angst/Hurt/Comfort - Danny/Steve friendship plus team.
1. Prologue

**Set Season 1, two and a half months after episode 18: Loa Aloha.**

**Disclaimer: Doing it just for fun - I lay no claim to H5-0 characters beyond my own current obsession. **

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><p>"A man's most open actions have a secret side to them." Joseph Conrad<p>

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><p><strong>Prologue<strong>

The room was small, stuffy and heavy with tension. As Steve stepped over the threshold, three faces turned towards him and the occupants moved back to make space before the row of TV monitors that filled the back wall.

Moving inside, he tilted his head in greeting at the Governor but she said nothing, her mouth merely tightening as though locking herself into silence.

Chief of Police Thomas Maleo stood with feet braced apart and arms folded over his chest. His whole demeanor shouted arrogance but he too remained silent. Steve fancied there was something else in his manner too... Was that triumph?

Turning to his right, Steve felt more stirrings of unease as he recognized FBI Special Agent Edward Kipton. _This could_ _be uncomfortable_...The last time they'd met, Steve had lied to his face about the whereabouts of a suspected member of a drugs cartel. He hadn't hesitated - the quarry was his partner's brother.

Steve didn't regret what he'd done then but, as he nodded his recognition, he wondered now if he was about to face some belated consequences.

"Someone care to tell me what's going on?"

Kipton moved to close the door behind Steve before answering him. "There's something we thought you should see," he said, then turned to press a button amongst the array on the panel of the desk before them.

The screens lit up with stuttering black and white images.

On the top right, the outside of a two story building at night. Apartments with a verandah along the front, their white railing cutting the screen in two. In the shadows below, a car draws up. Ford, a hatchback. Nothing noteworthy.

The driver climbs out on the far side and goes to the middle door of the ground floor. He remains with his back to the camera, hidden by the low bulk of the vehicle and the darkness and an Hawaiian downpour.

The middle screen shows a different angle from a camera that Steve judges must be mounted on the underside of the verandah itself, facing along the line of doors..._security conscious, this place_... The man's face remains hidden as he nonchalantly leans his arm high against the door frame. He is wearing a jacket that disguises his shape.

Steve squints at the grainy picture, trying to peer between rivulets cascading from an unseen overflowing gutter above.

There's no sound to the knocking but the door opens a little to reveal only half a shadowed face from inside.

Steve's instincts are beginning to sing. Like the string of a bow being drawn back, he can practically feel the vibrations as something about the silent conversation being conducted before him brings recognition.

No words – there are none to be heard but the arm of the visitor comes down. There's a hand gesture. A jerky, double-handed, fingers-splayed greeting. Then another. All seen from an angle that still leaves Steve some doubt.

In the next moment the door begins to widen but at the very instant of admittance the visitor slams it back hard into the peering face.

Steve is rigid now, unconsciously holding his breath, uncertain if the others in the room saw what he saw. Know what he knows.

Thirty seconds later there's no denying it.

Danny is not hiding his identity now.

Having reached inside and delivered a sharp, familiar looking blow, he's now pushing out of the door once more, shoving a hefty, stumbling man ahead of him. The hard line of his jaw, the grim, dangerous expression, is one Steve knows. He's seen it before but never like this.

His fist is bunched in the man's collar as he thrusts him into the still open car door, forcing him to clamber across.

Cut back to camera 1 and a white face appears in the passenger window..._Oh shit._.. Straggly black hair, rounded features, bloody nose, frightened eyes. And why not? Apparently, he's just been abducted after all.

Abducted by Danny Williams.

Camera 3 on the roadside catches a clear shot of Danny hunched over the wheel as he hauls it left out of the motel entrance. Steve can only imagine the engine's scream as he watches his partner accelerate away in the oppressive silence of that room.

Fade to the blackness of disbelief.

"So Commander," Governor Jameson's words broke the quiet and jolted him from his shock. "Any idea why one of your team just made off with our star witness in a drugs and murder trial."

**5-0 5-0 5-0**


	2. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

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><p>"You know, that is <em>really<em> not a good idea."

Steve heard Danny's voice before he saw him. Conversational. Reasonable. The tone of good sense, if, perhaps, a little condescending. The tone that was so often leveled at him but this time, he was not the target of the lecture.

As he reached the top of the fire escape steps, gun in hand, Steve slowed his pace to take in the scene as he approached his partner.

"What are you thinking?" He sounded concerned. "You know, you're only gonna hurt yourself if you do that." A parental warning, with the same air of long suffering resignation that comes from knowing a recalcitrant child is about to do something stupid in spite of the best advice.

Danny was leaning over the edge of the rooftop, Sig held in a relaxed two handed grip and pointing downwards.

"Course, I could shoot you and that would hurt too," he shrugged carelessly.

Hearing Steve's approach he glanced up and, with a quirk of his brow and a slightly exasperated _what-ya-gonna-do? _shake of his head, gestured below. Steve peered over to see the top of a mop of unruly black hair and a plump body poised precariously on a narrow ledge that ran around the outside of the building. Three floors up.

Soda Martinez, small-time thief and full-time lowlife, had led them on quite a chase when they had tried to arrest him. He was a fast mover despite his bulk, scooting out from behind a round bar table and ducking through a back door even as Steve's eyes were still adjusting to the darkness of the sleazy dive they'd traced him to.

Seeing his quarry disappearing in the gloom, Steve had followed but, bursting from the building, could see no sign of him. He was cursing a lost trail when he heard Danny's shout from the side alley.

Scaling a fence at the end, Steve saw his partner racing up the steps of the building next door.

"He's heading up!" He shouted, then he was off.

Steve's route brought him to the roof some minutes after Danny and now, from their bird's eye view above, he could clearly see the new problem.

The man beneath them was quivering with tension. A black stain of sweat covered his back and shoulders as he glanced up briefly, then out across a four foot gap to an opposite roof. Soda was fidgeting and breathing hard as if to psych himself up for a massive effort.

"I've told him..." Danny was speaking to Steve now, even though he was still looking down.

"I've warned him...if he tries that, it's gonna end badly for him. He's just not gonna make it." Danny smiled broadly at Steve before continuing, raising his voice slightly to be sure Soda was paying attention. "Hey, SuperSEAL, you're an expert at leaping off stuff... tell me, you think he can he make that jump?"

Steve leaned over further for a proper assessment."Nah!" He grinned back. "But let's watch him try anyway."

Danny sucked on his teeth in exaggerated contemplation. "Ten bucks says he hits that wall before crashing down to become a glutinous bloody blob on the sidewalk."

"You kidding? I'll raise you ten that he just goes straight down." Steve was enjoying himself now. "And...if I win, _you_ get the clearing up the blob job!"

Danny huffed a laugh. "No way..."

"OKAY!" A shout came from below the pair and they turned together to look down once more.

"OKAY!" the voice repeated. "I...I'm coming up, alright."

"You sure, now?" Danny goaded. "You sure you don't want to hang around there and enjoy the view some more?" The only response was a rather frightened moan.

"Well, okay then. First things first, pass up that weapon you have tucked in your belt there."

The man's hand was shaking as he slowly released his white-knuckled grip on the wall behind him to reach back. Danny holstered his own weapon and leaned over but, before he received the other's gun, Soda was turning, his foot was slipping and all they saw from above were terrified eyes, saucer wide with shock, and flailing arms windmilling in what seemed like comic-strip slow motion.

Danny leapt to grab one, latching onto a wrist with both hands as the man's body weight swung out into emptiness.

"Jesus..." This was a heavy guy, overweight and slippery with fear. Danny braced himself and grunted with the effort as his burden threatened to pull him over with him.

Steve leaned out to catch Soda's other hand but it waved about as frantically as his legs, pedaling wildly in thin air.

"Gimme your hand!" He shouted over Soda's screams but he was too panicked to obey. "Your hand!"

"Gah..." Danny felt himself losing his grip, as the wrist slipped further. His shoulders and back burned and his abdomen was being crushed hard against the stone wall that was their only barrier to disaster.

Steve reached across Danny's vision, blurred now by sweat, and clamped down to take a hold of the same wrist. Together they pulled. Their angle and Soda's desperate, jerking movements meant they made little impact at first but Steve grabbed down further and fixed on his belt.

Inch by painful inch, Soda rose up, babbling in terror and creating a fine mist of masonry dust as he scrabbled his feet against the brickwork until, with a grunt, he flopped over like a landed grouper. They fell backwards in a tangled heap, as the Five-0 rescuers finally pulled their wailing prisoner onto the safety of the flat rooftop.

The three of them lay panting for a second before Danny and Steve moved to help each other up. Danny worked his shoulders to ease the pain of his efforts, cursing the buttons lost from his shirt and the bloody scraped abrasions beneath, before turning to Soda.

"See, _that_ is why you should be locked up." His hands moved as though presenting the gift of truth. "You're an idiot!"

Danny's statement made Steve smile even as he cuffed Soda's shaking hands. He was still smiling as the string of muttered insults continued all the way back down the stairs to the waiting Camaro. Some of them were of course directed his own way..._Why is it you couldn't have waited 'til I had the back covered?...how is it that a guy who runs as much as you do, still got left behind?_... _Usain Bolt_ _beaten by_ _Budd Abbott, you should be embarrassed, no man, you should be ashamed _...but he chose to blank those, only really taking notice when Danny halted their march at the car and stepped into Soda's space.

"Take a look up there," he pointed. "Now take a look down here," he made an arc around them with a broad sweeping arm. Soda's gaze followed his directions like a patient undergoing an eye test.

"You ain't no bird my friend but, just wait, you're gonna sing like one – or he's likely to take you back up there and drop you back over the top." He jerked his thumb with affectionate pride towards Steve. "He's done it before you know."

As they climbed in, Danny took a final disgusted look at Soda in the back then turned to his partner and his face lost the scowl and lit up with a laugh.

"Blob job? Nice!"

The pair's mood was still light when they made it back to Five-0 Headquarters.

At the end of a long week tracking tenuous leads on a weapons smuggling ring, Soda might prove to be their key but the interview could wait. Steve was looking forward to some down time. It was a while since the team had simply kicked back.

He glanced over at Danny as they walked up the stairs. It was a while since he had looked this relaxed.

Steve realized he had enjoyed his afternoon.

Despite the chase and the stress, and the new aches they'd earned, he'd enjoyed the familiar back and forth, the easy flow of their partnership. It was something that had been strained for the past couple of months. Not missing, but subdued. Danny had been ...just different.

By his New Jersey nature, he was a live wire. Ebullient, vociferous and yes, often obnoxious. But something had changed in Danny. All it had taken was a moment of betrayal.

He hadn't been there for the confrontation but Steve had witnessed the aftermath. He'd let his partner know he had his support but, ever since that night when his brother had stepped onto a plane to fly out of their family and into the life of a criminal, it seemed as though Danny was just going through the motions of being Danny.

Oh, he hid it well.

Helping Grace through her own sadness that Uncle Matty was gone, he hid it with fun and devotion. With back-to-business professionalism, he hid it from his colleagues. But Steve saw the effort it took.

Danny had taken time off to fly back to New Jersey to explain to his family, to help them through their devastation and to field the FBI's relentless questions. Returning, gray with fatigue, the weariness had hardly lifted as he threw himself back into the Five-0 caseload. Late nights and early starts at the office hinted at the trouble he was having sleeping but despite the concern of his team mates, Danny just kept going.

Now, as he watched his partner bowl into their office and begin to relate the stupidity of "oversized felons with an XXL Icarus complex," to the amusement of Chin and Kono, Steve had some hope that just maybe they'd turned some corner.

"So," he interrupted the story-telling, "how about we call it a night and get some beers?"

It seemed that no one needed encouragement but as they broke up to leave, Danny quickly moved to grab at his pocket and brought his mobile to his ear, almost before anyone else even registered its ringtone.

He turned away to listen briefly then finger wagged the others to go on... _yes, yes..._ he mouthed that he would follow them, but headed instead for his office and closed the door.

Steve stood watching him through the glass and frowned... _There've been too many of these damned phone calls recently... too many closed doors._

The evening off was pleasant and well deserved but Danny never joined them.

Under a sky streaked blood-red by the setting sun, Steve nursed his beer as the banter flowed between Chin and Kono, and vowed silently that he would find a way to get their missing friend to come back to them.

**Tbc...**


	3. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

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><p>Kono leaned against the metal table in the corner of the interrogation room to watch the drama unfold.<p>

She loved her job. She'd never regretted joining the team, even if her progression had been unorthodox, but she was painfully aware of her inexperience in policing. She'd skipped walking the beat to leap straight into the Governor's high profile and highly charged elite squad. While none of her colleagues ever questioned her innate abilities and enthusiasm, they all recognized her need to learn and develop and the Five-0 members took time to teach and to share their own knowledge.

Family was family and Kono relied most heavily on Chin. Always available. Always generous with advice and answers. Steve was still feeling his own way in law enforcement but brought immense experience and authority from a different field. However, it was Danny's style that fascinated her the most.

Danny was a cop's cop.

Aware of rules but prepared to bend them to make the law work for him. The fact that he had won Chin's admiration so immediately told Kono enough. He'd earned his reputation on the mainland with an enviable arrest rate and, even as a haole, had won approval in just six months with HPD. Since joining the task force, it was generally Danny's counsel and experience that ensured a conviction when Steve's strong arm tactics might otherwise be damaging ammunition for defense lawyers.

All means and immunity gave Five-0 freedom, but Danny fought against too much lee-way in procedures that might allow the same for the felons they sought to put away.

Since her own rookie mistake in interviewing a suspect had led to his escape, Kono had made a special effort to watch and learn from the others' techniques. It was still early, but today seemed something of a masterclass.

It was not as simple as good-cop, bad-cop.

For half an hour, Danny and Steve had been working Soda Martinez in a tag-team of attrition. Cajoling, joking, threatening. Sometimes simply ignoring.

Since their first dramatic meeting, their partnership had grown into a close friendship and with that came an implicit understanding of each other. Kono noted, once in their flow, they were really something to watch.

Danny was well into his stride."See, Soda...I'd like to help you here, I really would, but I've gotta say, I didn't get much sleep last night. And when I don't get much sleep I get cranky."

"It's true – he does get cranky." Steve's voice came from behind Soda's head as he eyed Danny at his front.

There was an edge to his tone that Danny knew was directed at him rather than their prisoner – an edge that echoed the brief conversation they'd had when his partner arrived in the office to berate him for his social no-show.

Danny had been fully expecting it and quickly headed off the underlying concern..._don't go there._..with a believable diversion..._the best lies contain truths_...His excuse had been practised and delivered even as he rose to lead the way to the interview room..._moving target, harder to hit_...and Steve had to follow.

"See Soda...I _should_ have been out last night with my team mates, sinking a few beers, sharing a few laughs..." Danny studiously avoided Steve's pointed look. "But do you know what I was doing instead?" He waved a fat file with one hand and tapped it with the back of his other. "I was reading, Soda."

He opened up the file and leafed slowly through it, flipping the pages just inches from Soda's nose.

"Now, see, I like a good read. I do. When my job allows it. When I'm not wasting my time with low-lifes. I like a good thriller and I've been known to delve into the classics."

A quiet snort of disbelief from Steve and he turned his truculent gaze upon his partner.

"What, you don't think I read? You think New Jersey isn't a literary kind of place, is that it, Mr Assassination- For-Dummies? You know, there is life beyond Adventures Of A SuperSEAL by Ivor Rubberfetish. "

Steve held up his hands but Danny was only just beginning his defense of a perceived slight of his home state.

"We got _plenty_ of great authors from New Jersey. You like poetry?" The question seemed to be thrown open to any of the three others in the room. "I'll have you know, Allen Ginsberg was from Jersey. _And_ Fran Lebowitz – great author. And The Boss..."

"Springstein? You're kidding me..."

"Great lyrics. Great writing," Danny affirmed. He was on a roll. "Then there's Richard Kuklinski..."

"_Who_?" Steve demanded, incredulously.

"You'd like him...Killed over a hundred people for the mob, wrote a book about it from his prison cell." Danny turned on a now gaping Soda. "Prison memoirs...something that _you_ might even consider my friend, 'cos this..." he waved the file once more and now addressed his partner earnestly. "This is what I would call a tragedy."

Steve moved around to look interestedly over his shoulder at the file's contents and the conversation became between the two of them, like some housewives' book club. Kono smiled at the charade.

"See, it starts out with a young boy – full of promise and hope." Steve nodded his appreciation. "He's the product of a broken home - mother uninterested, father absent - he seeks solace where he can."

"A sad reflection of modern America then?" Steve prompted.

"Well, of a certain sort of modern America, yeah." Danny conceded, sounding like a psychologist considering an interesting client. Until he suddenly leaned forward and smacked the file hard into Soda's chest. The slap resounded in the quiet room and Soda bolted straight upright in his chair.

"The criminal sort."

Danny's voice was hard now, his face inches from Soda's as he continued with his eyes locked onto the startled wide gaze.

"The sort that thinks the world owes them. The sort who'll use anyone and anything to make a buck. The sort who moves from petty little crime to petty little crime, scrabbling for crumbs amongst the big boys...shoplifting...car theft...fake cheques...conning old ladies...a mugging here..a mugging there...

Danny's hands punctuated each phrase and Soda flinched with every gesture.

Danny stood up once more, and his voice dropped to conversational again. "And then ...gun crime. And _that's_ the tragedy here. Because you see, Soda – this is going to end very, _very _badly. For you."

Steve took his cue and reached across for Soda's file, managing to swipe the side of his head with it as he took it from Danny's hands.

"**Guns**, Soda!" His voice came like a shot itself, ricocheting off the walls, making their prisoner duck involuntarily.

"Guns that we know about. That you know about. Guns that we want to trace. Guns that we need to find. Guns that you are going to lead us to." Where Danny had used his hands, Steve used his body, nudging and bumping at Soda with each shouted assault.

A silence fell, Soda's heavy breathing was the only sound.

Danny watched him, taking in the clammy, sweaty skin. Pale and doughy, he looked desperate now.

Danny had seen so many like him in his career – skidding along on the surface of more serious crime. Dipping their toes into deeper and deeper trouble in the hope of coming up with the treasure of a money spinning scheme, but suddenly realizing they were in way over their head.

The dampness of stress gave Soda's fleshy face the look of a ripe cheese. Danny could smell his anxiety as his small dark eyes flicked between his antagonists.

They had him.

"I've got nothing to do with them," he blurted. "I don't know anything about no guns."

It was a weak effort and they all knew it.

Crossing over to the table where Kono was leaning with crossed arms, Danny gave her a slight grin and reached for a plastic wallet behind her.

"Then why did we find this on you?" Danny dangled the wallet containing a .44 in front of Soda's nose. "Like I told you before...you're an idiot! You don't think we can trace these things? You don't think we can tell that this is part of a shipment that went missing from a batch our Federal Bureau friends have been tracking?"

Soda gulped audibly.

Steve flicked a glance across to his partner. Danny was taking a risk here. They actually had absolutely _no_ proof, had so far _not_ traced the weapon to any shipment, and, in fact, had _no_ idea where Soda had come by the gun. All they had was a street whisper of an involvement in_ some_thing and a suspect who ran.

Steve found he was surprised at how well Danny could lie.

Soda, however, didn't see it and appeared to visibly deflate in front of them. His fleshy arms shrugged helplessly, like a bird too heavy to lift itself.

"I got it off a guy."

Steve nodded over at Kono and she pressed the recorder and scooped up her pad and pen to note down Soda's story. It was lengthy, repetitive and rambling. Steve and Danny urged it along with their staccato beat of questioning.

He had a contact who knew of a job that was going down..."Name?""Can't remember".._._.He could get Soda in with the people running the job …"What was his name?""Just a guy"_..._He just had this job... "What's the job?""Deliveries"..."Of what?""Just stuff"..."What stuff?""Okay, guns-n-stuff"... Thought maybe it would be a way into the big leagues..."What was the guy's name?""Don't remember"..."Name!""Soon Li!"... He didn't know about the source, just that they were planning on using local companies to cover the shipments, passing them on through the islands to Hong Kong and the Chinese gangs..."Which companies?""I don't know!"_ ..._"Where are the guns coming from?""Don't know!..."Where?""Didn't ask"... "US?Russia?Where?"Don't know"..."Which companies?"...They hadn't trusted him yet..."Which companies?""Local companies!"..."Names!""I don't know!".._._His contact was going to introduce him..."Where's this Soon Li?""Don't know"_..._He wasn't on the inside, wasn't close yet, was supposed to find storage..."Where?""I hadn't found anything yet"_..._"What companies?""I don't know"..."What companies?** What companies, Soda?**"

Danny and Steve fired question after question. Probing and niggling and repeating, until, finally... "Okay! Okay!...There's a florist!...some flower company!"

"Name?"

"Can't remember." But Soda was utterly beaten and in the next breath he began spewing details in a dull monotone of exhaustion.

"It ...it had a picture of a flower...a red flower or something on its logo, or a lei or something ...And a fruit distributor...Hawaiian Delight...or Delightful, or something...And a company that hires out boats..."

Once he started, it seemed he couldn't stop, his voice dropping lower and lower with each addition to the list.

"There's one that exports stupid coconut stuff – you know those fat figures with banana leaves for hair...Freaky things...sitting on surfboards or dancing a hula...Some market stalls...And a couple of bars..."

Soda looked up, then dried up.

Steve was nodding his approval. "See!" He exclaimed triumphantly. "Was that really so hard? We knew you'd be worth saving from that ledge."

He patted Soda comfortingly on the shoulder and turned to Danny with a satisfied smile, expecting to see one in return.

But Danny was staring hard at Soda, his face unreadable, his body rigid..._Oh shit!_

"Danny?...You got a prob..."

"I've gotta go." Danny interrupted and before Steve could finish his question, he'd turned on his heel, hauled open the door and left.

Kono and Steve glanced at each other before Steve took off after his partner, catching up on the dark stairs leading to the ornate foyer of the Palace.

"Danny?"

Danny kept climbing and was almost at the top.

"Danny!"

He stopped but didn't look around immediately, instead running both hands through his hair in a gesture that Steve recognized even from below and behind. In the moment of silence that followed Steve felt a stomach clench of dread. Something was wrong here.

As Danny finally turned, Steve suddenly saw the changes he'd noted before but now with a startling clarity, as though his friend had just given up trying to hide them. He looked drawn and pale. The lines on his face appeared to be etched more deeply and his shoulders slumped a little with what seemed like resignation..._Jesus, Danny...what's going on with you? _

"I can't be involved in this case," he said simply. "I have to recuse myself."

He was looking down on Steve and they held their positions for a moment before Steve stepped up to the stair below him. Now, unusually, their eyes were level but Danny glanced away.

Repeating the thoughts that were racing in his head, Steve grabbed his arm to force him to look at him. "What's going on, man?"

Danny sighed. "The flower company Soda mentioned...If it's what I think it is, you're gonna find it's called Big Island Flowers – the picture is a Red Ohia. It's the official flower of the Big Island."

Danny saw Steve's eyebrow rise in puzzlement over how he could possibly know that. He took a breath, pausing before going on..._There's no going back now.._.

"It's part-owned by Pedro Fuentez."

Steve knew the name immediately and Danny nodded at the recognition he saw on his face.

"Yeah, the same slimy shit who recruited my brother into money laundering for a drugs cartel."

The true implications of the situation were beginning to dawn on Steve. This was not just professional but personal.

"I have an interest."..._Yeah, we have a problem._..Steve's mind processed fast.

"You've been investigating him." It came as a statement not a question. Even as he said it, so much fell into place.

"You couldn't leave it alone."

Danny gave a surprised humorless smile.

"Did you really think I _would_?"

He turned again and walked away. Steve watched him go and realized it really was that simple..._No, my friend, I guess I never did._

**_Tbc..._**

**_A/N: thanks so much for reading and especially for reviewing - I love to hear your thoughts._**


	4. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

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><p>Danny had wondered many times in the past nine weeks how the moment of confession would go – in the many nights spent huddled in a car outside a bar, or tailing connected acquaintances, or as his eyes ached from the hours of computerized glare of records and affiliations and shipments and names – he'd known it was bound to happen sometime. He just wished it wasn't now. Not in circumstances that could impact upon so much else, upon another Five-0 investigation.<p>

He headed straight to his office but even as he entered, he sensed Steve's presence behind him.

"Danny, I don't blame you for wanting to help your brother." Steve's voice was understanding but Danny knew he still didn't yet fully realize the implications. He might be less understanding when he did.

He turned to face him, his voice belying the turmoil that he felt building inside.._keep it calm... _

"I'm going to take some days off. I've got to make some calls first. Give me half an hour and I'll give you what I can on Fuentez, point you in the right direction to pick up his trail, then I've got to step away from this case."

"Danny..."

"Look, I stay on this case and at some point some sleazebag lawyer is going to take great pleasure in telling a court that I might have good reason to set him up. _Any_thing I've touched, _any_thing I've said, will be open to question..."

"It's called police work..."

"No Steve, it's called personal. It's called reasonable doubt. And you'll be left to pick up the pieces when you watch the case fall apart."

Steve shook his head, grabbing at his pocket for his ID.

"See this?" He waved the wallet in Danny's face. "You do remember what makes us a bit special don't you? Why the governor set this unit up? Full means and immunity, Danny." He snapped the ID shut and pocketed it again.

Danny had moved behind his desk, effectively putting a physical barrier between them. His gaze dropped to the framed photo of Grace that always sat on the right side. Gut tightening at the sight of her bright smile, he remembered the day at the beach when it was taken. She glowed in the sunlight, her electric pink tee-shirt and the bows in her pig-tails gave her an extra innocence, but Danny could still hear the tinkling mischief in her laugh as she was about to douse him with a bucketful of sea water... _We'll have more days like that, Baby ...when this is done. I promise..._

Steve took in the weariness in Danny's blue eyes but pressed on.

"I really can't see what the problem is here. The guy has criminal connections and may now be implicated in gun running. Any investigation, whether it's been on your time or the Governor's, is justified and, God knows, it's not the first time things have turned personal...you're not going to hear me criticizing you for following every lead..."

No, the irony was not lost.

Steve raised his brows and both men knew he was referring to the very thing that had brought the Navy SEAL himself back to Hawaii, that took up too much of his own downtime, that was his own obsession.

Danny sat heavily in his chair, leaning back and passing his hand over his face in frustration.

"This is different."

He held up his hand to stop Steve's interruption.

"It's different. The Governor knew from the outset that you would be going after whoever killed your father – it was implicit in your taking this job. She knew what you'd be doing. Taking down Wo-Fat is important to the Islands, to the State."

Danny leaned forward and looked hard into Steve's face. "I _haven't_ been doing what I've been doing for Five-0. The Governor_ hasn't_ given her blessing. Doesn't even _know_ about it. It's not under her, or our, jurisdiction."

Steve frowned at that but Danny went on before he could voice his questions.

"So far this is still just suspicion, just supposition, just my gut, but if it turns out that Fuentez_ is_ using the companies he's bought into to start a new Cartel route for...for whatever you end up finding when you go in with your warrants and your immunities and your winning personality..." at least that came with a thin smile. "Just imagine the ramifications if it gets thrown out because of what I've been doing in my spare time." He leaned forward with his elbows on the desk, physically getting behind the importance of what he was saying.

"Matty got himself sucked into the Colombian Cartels – that's _international_, man." Danny gave another wry, humorless smile and a slight shrug. "He always was ambitious." Sighing, he went on. "Look, I've just been chipping away at what might be a very big iceberg but you know what happens when you hit one of them too hard. There could be a lot of people affected. A lot of countries, agencies, interested. They'll have people undercover, they've got leads, informants...all of them are at risk if we mess up... If I mess up."

And Steve saw then what was weighing so heavily upon his friend.

Danny was a man who took responsibilities seriously. Leaving his comfort zone as a distant memory, he'd moved thousands of miles, swallowed his pride and left a job he loved, just to be there as his daughter grew up. He'd started a new life and was making it work. Beyond his family, his job was everything to him and this situation involved both in a volcanic combination.

Looking back over the past weeks, Steve now found himself amazed at the way his partner had managed to hide the pressure he'd clearly been under. With a rather sick feeling of guilt, he registered the fissures had been there to see and that he had apparently failed his friend when they began to break apart.

_Seven weeks earlier_

_Kat's fingers slipped around the back of his neck, carding through his hair and moving to gently trace around his ear and along his jawline._

_Steve glanced at her as he drove. The bright lights of downtown nightlife reflected off the golden highlights in her sleek sheet of auburn hair and offered flashes of long legs and toned arms. _

_He'd been promising her a proper date and the fancy meal had been worth its price. To see her dressed up for him – the simple black dress leaving little to the imagination in the front and nothing at all in the back, clinging to her athletic body and dipping low enough to reveal the dimples at the base of her spine – was its own aphrodisiac. He'd smiled at the looks she drew from other male diners as they left._

_He let his hand drop onto her thigh and felt the thrill of anticipation for what the rest of the evening held._

"_You sure you want to do this?"_

_She laughed._

"_I mean, we could do this another time, you know. We could just go straight back to my place." He put it out there as a reasonable offer when he actually meant that was exactly what he wanted to do._

"_Steve, you've been promising to show me your HQ – I've never been inside the Palace before. This is a good opportunity – we're driving right past it." Catherine's voice was warm with amusement but he could hear her determination too. The woman was an officer in the Navy – she was used to getting her own way._

"_O-kay...Just don't want you to be disappointed."_

"_Nothing much you do disappoints me," she smiled. "Except the night of the tequila challenge – now that was a let down..."_

"_Always with the tequila – can't you cut me some slack..."_

"_Slack was the word," she laughed._

"_Hey! I'll have you know, I haven't touched a drop since." He gave her thigh a slight squeeze and felt her bring her legs together trapping his hand between them as she leaned in towards him._

_Her voice was husky as she breathed in his ear. "Well then Commander, let's make this a quick tour."_

_The promise held in that suggestion was still in his mind as Steve parked up and led Cat into the ornate Palace building and up the stairs to the glass doors of the Hawaii Five-0 offices. He swiped his ID card over the entrance pad and they stepped in._

_Movement sensors brought low lighting on and gave the room a bluish glow._

"_Wow..." Cat moved in to look over the state of the art technology, then smiled over her shoulder at Steve. "And you really know how to use all this?" She teased._

_He laughed. "Nah... that's why I have a team to do all the work."_

"_Well, looks like one of your team is working late." She nodded her head to the side and Steve registered a pool of light in Danny's darkened office._

_He frowned. Nobody should be here. The team had finished their long day hours ago – the culmination of a week long investigation that had ended in the dramatic arrest of two violent thugs, the hospitalisation of a third and the Five-0 members each nursing an assortment of minor injuries. _

_Steve moved forward and pushed open the door._

"_Hey!"_

_Danny was at his desk with files open around him. A coffee mug and a grease stained bag from the local bakery sat amongst the disarray, evidence that his partner had not enjoyed the sort of fine dining that Steve and Cat had shared his evening._

"_Hey!" He greeted back. "What you doin' here?"_

"_I work here. I could ask you the same..."_

"_Well, I work here too," Danny countered simply, standing up as Cat entered behind Steve._

_Steve watched as his partner stepped forwards, noting how he discretely closed the lid of his laptop and the cardboard files on the desk. He stopped beside it, effectively blocking Steve's view and access. _

_There was a moments silence before Danny coughed and looked hard at his partner, then nodded pointedly towards the beautiful woman standing at his shoulder._

"_Oh...er...Danny, this is Catherine...Lieutenant Catherine Rollins. Cat, this is Detective Danny Williams."_

"_You're such a Neanderthal," Danny murmured to his partner, as he moved to offer his hand and a smile that Steve recognized as the one designed to impress. And it usually did. A bright, wide smile that shone through his eyes, speaking of warmth and openness, reflecting interest and flirtation in their blue intensity._

"_Ahh, so this is the secretive seaborne source of our SEAL's super powers..." Danny's voice was teasing and Cat looked a question at Steve._

"_Er..that time when you used the ship's satellite navigation to pinpoint our perps..." he reminded her._

"_Or the time you allegedly had a satellite moved to track a certain escaping prisoner on the coastal highway..." Danny added, his smile still at a hundred per cent wattage, and clearly approving._

_Cat smiled back as she shook his hand. "Hmmm... clearly not so secretive then. Very pleased to meet you. I've heard a lot about you."_

"_Really? Strangely, Steve here hasn't given away much about you at all." He grinned at Steve before continuing. "Course he does like his funny little Ninja ways..."_

_Danny stepped back once more and began gathering papers into scrappy piles with one hand while the other hurriedly tucked the back of his rumpled work shirt into his pants. His tie lay discarded on the arm of his chair and he'd undone several buttons. His normally immaculately swept back hair looked somewhat disheveled. Steve and the team were always teasing Danny over the need to adopt a more relaxed personal style now he was in the Islands but this look spoke more of distraction and hard work than easy-going._

_Steve nodded at the desk and the papers in Danny's hand._

"_So, what you working on?"_

"_Well, my friend, believe it or not, driving a police cruiser the wrong way up an off ramp, 3 miles into oncoming traffic, causing multiple RTA's and then steering it through the front of a restaurant to eventually park it in the middle of a delightfully ornate pool full of coy carp, does result in a lot of paperwork."_

"_We got the guy didn't we?" Steve defended._

_It had been one hell of a chase, with Danny reaching new peaks of Jersey style profanity in his assessment of Steve's driving as he gripped onto the sides of the hijacked police car. _

_Afterwards, it had been Danny who had worked to placate the angry HPD officers who'd been left abandoned in a cloud of fumes when Steve had stolen their ride. And Danny who had organized statements from the dozens of customers who's meals were disturbed by the gun fight that followed the end of the pursuit. And Danny who helped the pretty, panicked young waitress pick up the flopping, fishy victims and pop them, gasping, into emergency ice-cream tubs of water before passing on the number of the HPD's claims department._

_Danny waved the last of the papers wadded in his hand towards Steve, before placing them in a drawer and closing it._

"_That is what I am doing." His eyes narrowed and he stepped in close to Steve. "Now what about you?" He dropped his voice to a suggestive whisper only Steve could hear. "Did you have a bit of out-of-hours office-based naughtiness planned?" He smirked. "You know, I could put more paper in the photocopier if you want a memento."_

_Steve punched his shoulder, before smoothly turning to smile innocently at Cat and gesturing to the exit._

"_Tour over...shall we?"_

Steve remembered the evening well, because it had ended well. For him. Since then though, whatever Danny had been up to, he hadn't been using the office to do it but, looking at him now, Steve realized he should have pressed for the truth of what had really been going on. Why he was still working long after he should have left. He simply hadn't taken that opportunity or, he realized now, many others that had followed.

When Danny had come in sporting a black eye after a weekend off, he'd accepted the excuse that an eight year old learning to surf can be dangerous to a father's health.

When Danny had started to decline the offers of a lift home or a lift into the office without much explanation beyond jokey deflection or inventive excuses, he'd not given it too much thought.

When Danny's phone had rung just as they'd approached a suspect two weeks ago, ruining their chance of a silent approach and resulting in a kick to the gut that left his partner vomiting on the floor, Steve had accepted his grim blaming of "_Bloodsucking lawyers... never call at a good time!" _

And the many times when Danny had looked as though he hadn't slept for days, Steve realized now, that he probably really hadn't.

Steve's couldn't contain his exasperation any longer.

"Shit, Danny! Why the hell didn't you just tell me?"

Danny's voice rose to meet the same level. "It wasn't your problem. The team can't afford to be sidetracked, we have a duty. It was _my_ brother. _My_ family. _My_ mess." Danny's hands tapped at his own broad chest with each assertion and ended wide in an appeal for understanding.

"Danny, you've been right there with me in my hunt for Hesse, for Wo Fat. If I'd known, I would have helped you with this." Steve jerked a thumb back towards the outer office where Chin and Kono were trying to look busy, while also clearly straining to glean what was going on, with concerned glances at them and between each other.

"We all would have helped."

Steve's words hung in the quiet for a moment before Danny stood.

"Just...let me make these calls, then I've _got_ to leave you to it. Believe me, Steve, this is the best way..." Danny's voice held a determined tone that Steve recognized.

Turning away in frustration he glimpsed Kono gesturing to the computer desk, the eagerness of a possible breakthrough shining in her eyes.

He released a long sigh.

"Okay. Just...keep in touch," he ordered, as he pulled open the door to pick up where Danny was apparently leaving off. "And don't go too far."

**TBC...**


	5. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

* * *

><p>As Danny turned up the familiar track his thoughts bounced as wildly as the suspension of the borrowed hatchback. A tiny car, easily overlooked and unremarkable in every way, it had proved essential to his weeks of secret surveillance, if frustrating on the few occasions it barely kept up with his quarry on the move. God, how he'd missed the Camaro then...<em>And now...<em>he noted, as the vehicle revved, bucked and strained on the uneven dirt road.

He took the right fork at the bend, only glancing left briefly to see the soft glow of light from a distant wooden shack. His own hide-out was in darkness, practically obscured behind trailing brush and tall grass.

Pulling up in the space left at the side of the building, Danny grabbed his battered black daysack from the passenger seat and headed in, up the two rotted wooden steps and under the broken roof of the dilapidated verandah that ran along the front of the small single story building. The distant soft thump of a rock beat punctuated the stillness and melded into the chirrups and whirrs of the night-time insect life. His only neighbor was a night-owl and lived loud.

Unlocking the door, he had to push hard to enter. Even these past weeks of its use hadn't eased the years of warping and rusting and the whole place was still thick with the musty scent of decay and abandonment.

Danny hadn't bothered with any homely touches here beyond the reconnection of electricity, via a looping outside cable, and water from the one stuttering tap, the replacement of light bulbs and the addition of a cheap coffee maker, his Jackals mug and some basic utensils.

He'd never intended to sleep here, always tried to make it back to his apartment, so had never brought in a bed or bedding. However, a now regular twinge in his lower back was an annoying reminder of the naivete of those good intentions and the times he had eventually succumbed, either in the one lumpy armchair tucked against the wall, or slumped face down onto the long wooden table that ran the length of the room.

He cast his eyes over the table now. The scattered papers and photos would seem random to most but to Danny, there was order in the scribbled notes, the printed lists, the images, recordings, timings and notations.

This was the result of his own investigation into Pedro Fuentez and his Hawaiian business partner.

It had started with a burning need for action, the need to do _some_thing, when he'd been so unable to do anything to prevent Matt from leaving - a cop's need for justice and a brother's need to fill the void left in his family with retribution and vengeance.

Danny gazed over the results of his efforts and, lowering his bag, moved to place both hands flat on the table. His head dropped to hang down between his rigid shoulders. He'd never meant his private crusade to affect his job or his relationships.

Closing his eyes he drew in deep breaths, releasing them slowly as he tried to relax and gather his thoughts.

_It's a good thing. Really...it's a good thing... finally it's out there. _

Danny never felt right keeping secrets. Growing up in the Williams family, in a small house, you were expected to share your life with everyone – parents, sisters, brother ..._Yeah, well, openness __clearly_ _didn't extend to everyone... _He was an open kind of guy, never one to hide emotions easily. People who knew Danny usually knew his views on most things pretty quickly, even if they didn't ask.

Sure, he _could _lie. Often he'd had to.

He'd once spent seven weeks undercover as a longshoreman at the North Shore docks and every day had to convince his tough work crew that he really was one of them, that his father and uncles had all once been in the same close knit business in Detroit, that he was born to it, that he could be trusted to keep their secrets when it came to bringing in under age girls from Eastern Europe for the purpose of prostitution. While most of those guys were stand-up individuals trying to make an honest living, those who weren't, the five behind the illegal trade, were vicious and greedy and he really hadn't minded lying to them at all.

Even when he ended up in hospital with a broken wrist and concussion from their beating, he hadn't minded about deceiving them. He had a cause and they got their due.

No, adopting an alternate identity for the job came easily enough – barman; cab driver; vagrant; male escort. He'd stepped into those roles, no problem.

Working undercover, making deals, persuading reluctant informants, gleaning intel, covering for colleagues. It's a fact, good cops are good liars. Married cops particularly. But then, Danny had always preferred to think of it more as manipulation of the truth when it came to Rachel... _"No Honey, it's not dangerous"... "Honestly, it's just a stake out – we're not planning on going in"... "No, Babe, this gang is not violent"... "Promise...I'll be back early tonight"..._

Sure, Danny hated lying but he was actually quite masterful at it.

The divorce had however revealed all kinds of other effective masking skills that even Danny hadn't known he possessed. He had a new incentive. Deflection, humor and devotion meant he'd managed to keep his worst despair and anger from the most important person in his life.

Unsurprisingly though, convincing an eight year old girl that, "_Sure Sweetie, everything's gonna be just fine,"_ had proved simpler than convincing a trained specialist in covert activity that, "_Sure Steve, I'm okay... the fact my brother has left, that he's opted to throw in with a drugs cartel, and the bastard who coerced him into that choice is still out there, living it up, is not going to affect me at all." _

It was never going to be easy but, from the beginning of his investigation, Danny had been determined to keep his friends out of it. This was his mess. His job. A job that he knew would have been so much easier if he _had_ come clean with his colleagues, admitted the growing exhaustion and deepening darkness. But Danny hadn't wanted easy. Something in him had wanted it to be hard.

In the countless hours, weeks and now months that he'd spent tracking and trailing the people, the money and the movements, and in the days and nights that he'd followed, hidden, questioned and chronicled the network of connections, he now realized that he had wanted to suffer. He deserved it for his failings.

"Stupid!"

His own loud exclamation surprised even himself and he straightened up to stretch the knotted kinks from his neck.

Danny shook his head slowly in self recrimination. "Stupid," he repeated more quietly to the silent room.

This was his chance to make things right again.

Time had started its healing work and Danny knew his efforts had taken their toll. He couldn't remember the last time he'd slept properly. He'd felt constantly on edge, awaiting calls, awaiting confirmations of suspicions, juggling his Five-0 duties with his out-of-hours activities and his time with Grace.

_Grace_...He knew he'd let her down. Despite his early promise to himself that he wouldn't allow it happen, there had been times when the Fuentez investigation had forced him to postpone or change his plans with his daughter, to disappoint her.

"No more..."

Danny reached over to the daysack and withdrew his laptop. Sitting down at the table, he felt some of the long held tensions beginning to ease with his new resolution. As he gazed around the gloom, a slight smile tugged at the corners of his mouth and he reached for some of the scattered piles of papers and waited for the log on to complete.

This place may be a dump but it had proved useful and despite its state of decrepit dilapidation, of course, it _did_ have its own excellent Wi-Fi.

**5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0**

Kono and Chin had already started working on the information Soda Martinez had given in the interview, pulling up details of companies that might fit his descriptions. It could be time consuming but at least Kono knew exactly how to trace the despised surfing coconuts he'd mentioned – only last month she had given one to her friend Mel for a jokey birthday gift. She quickly called up the beach-side outlet where she'd bought it and already had a name for the distributor. She was eager to follow up, when Steve had emerged from Danny's office with news of more imminent leads. From Danny.

The cousins had watched their friends' heated argument, witnessed Danny's apparent determination and Steve's exasperated defeat. Initially their team leader had given little information away but his eyes flicked constantly to watch Danny through the glass as he spoke animatedly on the phone and worked on his laptop.

Barely an half an hour afterwards, Danny had walked out of his office to the center of the room and quietly laid a memory stick on the desk. They all saw the effort it took.

His hands had lifted briefly as though he was about to launch into an explanation but, after a moment and with a grimace of regret, they dropped to his side once more.

"Have to take a few days off," he'd said. He nodded at the device in front of them as they stood in a silent arc, waiting. "That should get you started. If the flower company _is _a front then maybe Pedro Fuentez is using more of his businesses too. That's all of them. He's been buying into plenty of stuff, working mainly in partnership with a local guy for what I think you'll find are some pretty '_nefarious activities'_." He made exaggerated quotey fingers around his description. "Nothing I could pin on either of them, but maybe finally they're stepping it up and you'll have better luck."

"Everything on there is verifiable. Background stuff. You could have found it all out for yourselves." He grinned slightly and quirked a brow pointedly. "And, if a lawyer ever asks, you did."

Turning away, he'd hesitated once more. Kono and Chin were still unaware of the reasons but it was clear now that Danny really was about to walk away from an on-going investigation. It went against his very nature and in his awkward movements and defensive posture they could see what it was costing him.

His blue eyes met Steve's and held.

"Do me a favor, okay?...Just...consider this an incentive to clear the case...Go...Find the guns, save the world. You know, all that stuff you live for..."

One hand shoved into a pocket, the other waved in an affected but unconvincing gesture of carelessness as he continued. "I'll talk to legal...see if we can work something out ...maybe work on some other stuff 'til you've got this all wrapped up, taken down the bad guys."

He huffed a quiet laugh, trying to raise the atmosphere. "Between you and Kono here, there's bound to be paperwork to be done, you know, apologies to be made, reparations to be paid..."

Steve had said nothing, his own brow still furrowed with disbelief and concern.

Danny had turned to Chin then. "Sorry to leave them with you, man," his concerned tongue-in-cheek tone was as though he was advising a babysitter. "Don't let them get away with anything while I'm gone."

Then he'd left.

Temporary or not, necessary or not, Danny's absence was as noticeable as his presence. His loud and lively energy filled a room and without him the team felt flat. They set to work immediately to cover their anxiety at the loss. Their missing partner had given them a starting point and they felt an urgent and mutual need to use whatever advantage it might give them.

With the deft sweeping movement of a conducting maestro, Kono brought it all up on the wall mounted screens.

True to his word, the flash drive he'd left contained an impressively comprehensive rundown of Pedro Fuentez's many and varied interests in Hawaii, as well as those of one Keo Kahumoku, the nominal head of most of them.

There was the flower company, of course, but also two bars, a porn shop, an electrical outlet, a defunct fruit farm, five concessions in three separate street markets, holdings in a leisure boat hire firm, more in a high end garage and shares in a myriad of other disparate companies spread throughout the islands.

Addresses, partners, fellow board members, finances, telephone numbers, subsidiaries, profits, investments, licenses, imports and exports – it seemed to be all there. Big Island Flowers was just one of a complex multitude but it was what had set bells ringing in Danny's head and that was enough for Steve.

Any one of the companies that Soda had mentioned could be a cover for the arms dealing Five-0 were trying to track. They may not all be on Danny's list but they couldn't afford to ignore them either. They would have to follow up all leads but this one was special – a known connection to a known criminal with known and established connections to criminal gangs.

And it was personal. Personal to Danny, which made it personal to Steve and to the team. They knew they were in for a long haul.

**5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0**

Danny stretched wearily, arching his arms up and back to ease the stiffness of typing for several hours. Although he ached he was smiling. He'd finally finished updating and collating all his data. The papers were sorted and catalogued. He was done. He wasn't giving up his pursuit of the people he held responsible for turning and taking his brother to a life of serious crime – he would never let it go entirely, but he was releasing the strangle-hold it had recently taken on his life.

It felt good.

He glanced at his watch. Two hours and he could go pick up Grace. He'd promised her a movie night and he found he was actually looking forward to whatever Disney cartoon she chose.._.Well, if_ _not the movie, the company_... Lounging on the sofa with his daughter laughing in his arms, was his idea of heaven right now. She deserved his full attention and she was going to get it.

Moving to grab his gear, he instead grabbed his phone as a familiar slack-key guitar rhythm started up.

"Hey, Big Man!"

"Hey, Jersey!" Kamekona's smiling voice greeted him back.

"So, your shave ice melting? You run out of fried chicken? Got a parking ticket for that cart you call a business? What do ya need from me?" Danny's good mood translated to his teasing.

"Nah Brah, it's what I can do for your Haole ass," Kamekona replied. "I got something for you."

Danny scanned the room for anything he'd left behind. The filed papers could stay, he'd get them another time, deliver everything together when he made his next meeting. Maybe his final meeting. He'd already sent off the latest computer file of detailed research, the last for a while he hoped. The laptop was packed, and he was heading out the door as he continued the conversation.

"Really? You shouldn't have... but, come to think of it, I could really use another of those tee-shirts of yours – my little girl used the last one for a tent when we went camping. Your face on it kept the bugs away too." He really was feeling lighter than he had in many weeks.

"Aww, Brah! No more shave ice for you. You know, they're normal size on most people." Kamekona laughed, taking no offense at the jibes about his Sumo-size dimensions, just as Danny ignored the usual teasing about his own.

"You better be nice to me Brah, I got a package for you. Some dude dropped it off. Said it was something special and asked me to give it to you."

Danny was getting into his car and checked his watch once more. There would be time to stop off on the way to get Grace.

"'Kay, man – I'll be there. And hey, stay off the boardwalk by the pier will ya? There's signs up saying there's a weight limit of a tonne!" With that he ended the call before the big man could reply.

Yeah, Danny felt good, he could finally see things getting right back to normal.

**5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0 **

The package was a small, sealed, white cardboard box. No wording on the outside. With it, a cheap cell phone.

"Never seen the guy before, Brah...he just said he'd heard I could make sure you got these," Kamekona said, as he handed the two things over in the parking lot at the seafront and watched Danny walk away to the beach railing to take a closer look.

Danny examined the box, and shook it slightly. There was definitely something inside but nothing rattled. Holding it up to the light he checked around the edges and joins but there was no evidence of wires and it certainly wasn't ticking. The prickle of suspicion and concern made him hesitant but Kamekona had been handling it none too carefully before him and really, it didn't feel threatening.

Tentatively, he slid his fingers beneath the tape and opened it up slowly, unfolding a wad of tissue inside.

For a moment he was puzzled. For just an instant there was doubt ..._What the Hell?_...Then a coldness seized him in a physical grip that stopped his breath.

A finger.

Blood smudged and graying, it lay nestled in the crinkly white paper like a dead animal. A man's, judging by the size. Index. Now just a lifeless lump of flesh and bone, precisely cut, the nail of one end short and well kept, the skin at the other, open, still moist and vaguely pink. The blood on the tissue was already dry and blackened, flaking in the creases.

_Oh, God! …_It didn't look real, more like a fake horror that you might buy for Halloween.._.Oh God!..._ But Danny had seen too many body parts in his career, and knew immediately this was no fake.

Holding the box in one hand he leaned forward against the rail with the other, fending off the burn of rising bile, repeatedly swallowing back the nausea that came with the rush of acknowledgment at its reality. His head spun with the added dreadful certainty that a tragedy was just beginning to unfold, with him at its center.

**Tbc...**


	6. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

* * *

><p>The scent of hundreds of island blooms hung in the warm mid morning air and stirred as many memories for the two men watching the busy operation underway below them. It was not high tech.<p>

Under the shelter of a long canvas roof, open boxes slid sluggishly along a rickety conveyor belt between two rows of mainly female workers. Their feet were hidden by the mass of flowers overflowing from the buckets beneath them. As the shallow boxes passed them, the women bent and scooped rhythmically, selecting and carefully placing the stems. From above, the impression was of a slow moving kaleidoscope of color.

Steve and Chin had both grown up knowing the names of the islands' flowers. They were as much a part of Hawaiian life as the twinkling blue waters and emerald green slopes, their hues painted the bright and vivid beauty of the place.

Most island kids got roped into making leis at some point, despite young boys' protestations. As he watched the blur of yellow hibiscus, Chin clearly remembered helping an over excited five year old Kono make the decorations for their family's regular lively parties.

Beside him, Steve could still hear the echoes of the nursery school chants learned to recite the island names. Pua Aloalo, Hawaii's state flower. Lokelami, the pink cottage roses. Kukui blossom. Yellow Ilima. The last brought a painful ache too as he remembered himself as a boy, weeping in his bedroom, desperately shredding the yellow blooms after his mother had died. Everyone knew they were supposed to be a cure for illness – something in his childish grief had thought it might just bring her back.

"It would be a pretty good cover for gun smuggling." Chin's voice broke into Steve's reverie. "Smuggling anything actually," he added.

He nodded his head towards a large transit van parked at the side of the fenced area below where two men were busy loading the filled and sealed flower boxes. On the side of the van, the red ohia flower Danny had described twined artistically through the name emblazoned in blue lettering. Big Island Flowers.

"To get those flowers to markets overseas, they have to move them fast. The right kind of bribes to the right kind of people along the way and it could be a pretty slick operation."

"Yeah, and not too big to attract too much attention," Steve agreed as he studied the site.

The only building there was clearly fairly newly built..._new investment perhaps?_... Long and low, it seemed to serve as a garage at one end, where they could see four more vans parked up, and as an office at the other. Since they had been watching from their vantage point on the road that led down to the compound they'd seen nobody entering or leaving the main door. Now though it was opening.

"Speaking of attracting attention...I believe we may have been spotted."

Chin grinned slightly at Steve's typically astute but, this time, wholly unnecessary observation. The man standing at the doorway, gazing up towards them, was obvious to them both, as were his gestures to his companion, who quickly climbed into a gleaming silver Jaguar and headed in their direction.

Steve straightened up as the vehicle approached them and stopped alongside. The darkened driver's window slid down and they stiffened slightly in anticipation but there seemed to be no threat as the granite features of a man in his thirties were revealed.

Hawaiian, his dark hair tied back in a short pony tail, the guy's muscled biceps strained beneath a tight t-shirt and flexed the tattooed rainbow on his right arm. Even seated behind the wheel they could tell he was a big man. A hard man.

"My boss would like to speak to you." Despite the deep rumble of his voice and the somewhat flat intonation, it was a polite enough request, even if it came out more like an order.

Although maintaining a distance, they had not actually been trying hard to conceal themselves. Steve and Chin had agreed they didn't have the time or extensive manpower needed to set up a long term covert observation. If a weapons deal was going to go down and if the players really were who Danny said they were, maybe they would make a mistake under a little pressure.

They glanced at each other and without a word, climbed into the Camaro and followed their guide back down the hill and through the open metal gates, to draw up in front of the building, and in front of Keo Kahumoku. According to Danny, this could be the Hawaiian front man for the international operations of some of the most dangerous criminals in the world.

On Danny's recommendation they'd pulled his identity before setting out first thing to take a look at his businesses for themselves. Now the driver's license photo they'd studied had come to life before them.

Thick set and balding, what had once been muscle was just beginning to run to fat but the loose cut of his bright red silk shirt hid it well. What hair was left on his shiny, broad head was swept back and a neatly trimmed beard helped to outline a profile that was losing the sharp lines of fitness to the inevitability of late middle age. His manner and appearance exuded wealth. Six hundred dollar Bvlgari sunglasses hid his eyes as he faced them but his look was grim.

"I am glad to see my complaint has been acted upon."

_No introductions then..._.Steve thought.

"Complaint?"

"You will see I am a man with connections." Kahumoku crossed his arms over his chest. "I'm waiting..."

Steve stood his ground and shook his head slightly. "Me too," he said affably. "For an explanation... I really don't know what you're talking about."

The Hawaiian stepped closer to Steve. He was a few inches shorter but had the bearing of a man who liked to intimidate, to bully.

"For the apology I am due," he snapped. "You think you people can come in here, threatening me, throwing accusations around, throwing punches, and get away with it?"

Steve shrugged slightly in bemusement that was genuine enough but also purposely exaggerated, simply to piss this guy off..._Yeah, shake 'em up and see what falls..._

Kahumoku grabbed his shades from his face and used them to jab at Steve's chest. Steve noted dark, dangerous eyes before he slowly lowered his gaze to the place where the glasses pressed against his shirt front.

"Defamation. Damage to property. Assault...I could bring charges...You think you have something on me, bring a warrant, not threats."

Steve looked up slowly and deliberately from the poking gestures and then stepped forward himself. Now he was the one doing the crowding and he was built for it. He stared straight into his aggressor's face, a muscle twitching in the line of his jaw.

Beside him, Chin read the signs as clearly as a crowd member anticipating an imminent dog fight. The chatter that had been going on amongst the workers at the conveyor belt had ceased behind them and now the air was filled only with the grumble of the motor.

"Mr Kahumoku, I really have no idea what you are referring to." Steve gestured towards Chin. "My friend here has a hot date coming up – we just came by to look into buying some flowers." He inclined his head without looking away. "That _is_ what you do here isn't it?...Deal in flowers?"

The guy with the rainbow tattoo had moved to his boss's side, an attack dog waiting to be unleashed. Steve registered a slight smudge of what could be a bruise high up on his cheekbone. For a moment the four men stood stock still, until Kahumoku eventually took half a step back and withdrew his hand.

His eyes glittered with a nasty anger, but Steve registered something more too that he couldn't read..._Is he smiling?_

"Just you keep your Detective Williams away from me," he spat.

Steve held his expression as Kahumoku turned away dismissively but inside he flinched at the name..._Danny?_

"Oh and that goes for you too Commander McGarrett," Kahumoku said over his shoulder as he walked back towards the office. It seemed no introductions had been necessary. "Or I will be suing your ass and calling in the cops...the real cops."

Steve watched as the Hawaiian stepped through the doorway. In the quiet, his feet crunched on some fragments of broken glass that lay glittering in the dirt from a damaged panel at the side. A spider's web of cracks fanned out from an impact point..._Recent...They haven't even cleared it up yet..._Steve's mind was racing even as he and Chin climbed back in their car.

When Steve spun the wheel and gunned the engine back up the hill, it was Chin who finally voiced the thoughts they shared.

"I thought Danny was supposed to be staying out of this."

He looked over, his brow creased in concern.

"He said he was," Steve agreed grimly. "But I'm getting the feeling we're a few hours behind whatever the hell he's up to."

**5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0**

Waiting for the phone call was like waiting for the proverbial second shoe to drop. Danny knew it would come – no point delivering a severed finger without leaving a message too. It was inevitable but, despite a building dread of suspicion, it still shocked him into fumbling the device as its chirpy two-tone pierced the vacuum of silence that he felt surrounding him.

Not a call. Not a text. A photo.

Matt.

Danny felt as though the air was being sucked from his lungs and he closed his eyes to force himself to breath again. Opening them once more, his vision zeroed in on the image as everything else blurred around him with the dizzying effect of a rapid pull focus in a movie.

Unshaven, white-faced and wide eyed, Matt was hunched over, his arms resting on his lap. One hand supported the other – the one with a bloody dressing wrapped around it, over the space where a finger should have been. He looked as though he was in shock, frightened and haunted.

"Matty...Oh God!" Danny whispered.

Shutting off the image, he spun around, taking gulps of air to quell the nausea that had returned with the same force as when he first saw his brother's severed finger. Gradually, as he stooped to still his quaking gut, he became aware of the quiet watchful presence of Kamekona.

He couldn't speak to him, couldn't share this. Two shoes had hit but now there were still more to follow. This situation had turned surreal. All he could do was await instructions. Or terms. Or demands.

_No! _

As Danny gazed upon Kamekona's concerned face and as the big man began to lumber slowly towards him with a clear intention of asking what was up, Danny knew he would _not_ be waiting.

Before he could reach him but not before he read the look of devastation on his face, Kamekona watched Danny whirl away, clutching the white box and the phone he had passed him. The blond headed for his car without saying a word. The tyres of the little rusty red hatchback left skid marks as he accelerated away, leaving the big Hawaiian gaping in confusion beside his shave ice stall.

**5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0 **

Danny's own visit to Big Island Flowers was not much longer than Steve's was to be the next morning but it was more violent.

Bursting through the door, he was across the office and grabbing Kahumoku before anyone had the time to stop him. With a handful of his shirt in one hand, he pulled him half over the desk, never once taking his eyes from his face even as two weighty body guards moved in.

Kahumoku gestured quickly with both hands for his men to stay back and then clasped at Danny's fist at his throat.

Danny had a powerful strength. Despite a cop's traditional love for the sweet and the fatty, he'd always kept himself fit. He saw it as part of his duty, not only to the job but to his daughter. Naturally broad and well muscled, he maintained his own regime which included a determined, self-imposed, bench press challenge. When anger-fueled, he was formidable.

"You and your Columbian friend sent me a message? You have something you want to say to me?" he hissed, his face inches from Kahumoku's.

He shook his grip slightly, forcing his knuckle sharply into Kahumoku's neck next to his bobbing adam's apple.

"Where the hell is my brother?"

"I don't know what you're talking about..." Kahumoko croaked, still hanging onto Danny's iron hard fist.

Danny shook him again. "Don't give me that you pri..."

Kahumoku's men couldn't take it any longer and moved to haul Danny off their boss, taking one arm each. But Danny didn't let go and Kahumoku was pulled right over the desk as Danny was forced backwards.

In the scrabbling chaos, Danny suddenly relinquished his hold, dropping Kahumoku in a heap and swinging at the man on his left. His fist connected hard and the guy staggered back. Danny immediately ducked down. Pushing back through the two men at his sides, he created a small amount of space but the second guard was quick to recover and launched a roundhouse swing that caught Danny in the gut and doubled him over.

Down on one knee and winded by the blow, Danny had no time to recover as he saw two sets of feet approaching his tunnelled vision. Launching himself from his crouched position, he surged upwards into the stomach of the man closest and was rewarded with a satisfying grunt of pain and a forced expulsion of air that gusted onto his back.

The forward momentum of his attack had however put him back within reach of the first goon and before he could reestablish his balance, the flash of a rainbow tattoo and a blow under his jaw snapped his head back, lifted him off his feet and threw him hard against the wall. He felt the impact of it on his shoulder blade, heard a crack and, for a fleeting moment, Danny feared it might have been a bone breaking.

Splayed at the foot of the wall, as the two men loomed towards him, Danny scrabbled for his gun and brought it up in a firm two handed grip.

Everyone halted and the only sound was of huffing breaths.

Kahumoku stepped between his men as Danny slowly rose, using the wall behind him to steady himself and still keeping his weapon leveled upon them.

"I know what you do. I know all about your operations. You and your Colombian partner. You and Fuentez. The rackets, the prostitution, the loansharking and the drugs...Him putting the money up, you the figurehead...I got plenty on you." Danny's words were spilling out in his anger – something in his head was telling him to shut up, to get out while he could, but he couldn't stop himself.

"And now weapons? Fancy expanding do ya?" His voice was deep with anger.

"You think holding my brother...hurting him...will stop me coming after you?" He took a step towards Kahumoku, his weapon still held rigid. "Think again."

His eyes narrowed and his jaw twitched with tension.

"Now... tell me where he is."

Kahumoku shook his head slowly, his eyes assessing.

"I told you... I don't know what you are talking about, _Detective Williams," _he emphasized Danny's name to make his point. "Oh yes, I know who you are. But your_ brother_?...The other stuff you mentioned?" He tutted mockingly. "I'm just a businessman." He straightened his collar from where Danny had gripped it into a concertina of creases before continuing. "I got where I am by making deals." His voice turned hard. "_Always_ from from a position of advantage, _only_ when the time is right and _only_ when I'm good and ready...Now, get off my property."

Both Kahumoku's men had now reached behind their own backs and drawn their own weapons. It was a stalemate and Danny knew he wasn't going to get anywhere ..._Christ! Have I blown it?...Have I wasted everything?..._ His mind was whirling even as he fought to maintain his posture. If Kahumoku and the Colombian, Fuentez, had sent him his brother's picture, had tortured him, they already knew Danny was on to them..._must do..._ That had to be why they were trying to intimidate him... _But what's the purpose? What do they want?_ He couldn't make it out. _What's changed?_

Kahumoku clearly wasn't ready to tell him.

Danny recognized the stand-off was a no win situation and finally, without lowering his gun, backed slowly out of the door.

He was aware of Kahumoku and his two men watching him from the doorway as he drove away and only too aware that, really, he had gained nothing with his impetuous move … _Man!... McGarrett, you're wearing off on me..._

The thought of his partner brought a renewed ache of regret..._What would you do, brah? What would you do?.._but with an effort he set the feelings aside.

As he headed for the only person he could confide in, he was still just as much in the dark as before. Still waiting for the next move.

And he had some calls to make.

**5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0**

"_Danny, I thought you wanted out of this – what the Hell's going on? Keo Kahumoko says you paid him a visit. You left some impression. Call me."_

At Five-0 Headquarters, Chin and Kono scanned through the details of all the other businesses Danny had suggested as possible covers for illegal activities. Even with Danny's pointers, it was time consuming and tedious.

Steve drove to the rented house he had sat outside with Danny just a couple of months ago, when his partner had berated himself, hated himself, for spying on his brother. Steve had seen the pain it caused his friend then to even think that Matt could be into something illegal. It was here they had first identified Pedro Fuentez, known accountant for the third most powerful cartel in Colombia. Who could have predicted that moment would lead to this?

Steve groaned inwardly to himself … _I should have._

"Where are you ..." Steve muttered under his breath as he gazed at the high wall and locked gates. There were no vehicles on the driveway and no movement. The house appeared to be vacant now. He tapped the steering wheel absently with the cell phone he held in his right hand, glancing at it once more. His softly spoken query had been directed at more than one man.

"_Danny, we need to talk. Call me."_

"Anything?" Steve demanded as he stormed back into Five-0.

"The next scheduled shipment of flowers is due out to Hong Kong on Tuesday," Kono reported. "They get stored at the dockside beforehand."

"Apart from the flowers, the garage looks the next best bet...Wikiwiki Cars on Maui...Kahumoku imports and exports high end vehicles on a regular basis. Could be a front. " Chin brought up a Google shot of the street, showing the impressive frontage of the garage. Steve nodded in recognition. Most people gave the sports cars on the forecourt there a second longing glance as they passed by and he remembered seeing the business himself.

"I've checked the dates Danny gave us with the harbor," Kono said. "They're correct as far as I can see. No extra shipments or even applications for more." She leaned a hip wearily against the central desk. "Same goes for the other businesses I've had time for but it's going to be difficult to check the smaller ones, like the bars and the strip club, without going in waving badges."

Kono looked at the two men and was aware again of her inexperience. "I get that we are not exactly hiding, that we could pressurize them into a mistake but we can't go in guns blazing unless we know where, right?" she ventured.

Chin gestured to a map showing the locations of the five concession stalls in scattered busy market places.

"I had a word with a guy I know from HPD's gang unit. They've been watching some movement amongst the Samoans and the Triads but they haven't been able to pin anything on any other local group. I floated the suggestion of Colombian interests and he said there've been whispers but they haven't been able to tie anything down with any evidence. He says these places are used mainly for small deliveries and it's only drugs so far, no guns. They did know Martinez though, he's a regular blip on their radar."

"Co-operative guy," Steve mused, his brows raised at Chin. The team knew all about the antagonism their friend usually faced amongst his former colleagues.

"He owed me," Chin nodded, but went no further.

Steve pondered for a moment then moved off decisively.

"Let's go pay our friend Soda another visit, our chat yesterday got cut short ..._Yeah, your partner walking out will do that!.._I think maybe our informant knows a lot more than he's told us so far."

"Is Danny's phone still off?" Kono called after him quickly, nodding at the cell in Steve's hand. They knew he'd been leaving messages. "You want me to go over to his place?" She was worried for their friend too. It seemed to them all now that Danny was in trouble.

Steve hesitated for only a moment. "Yeah, do that and if he's there, tell him...Just tell him to get off his Jersey butt and return my calls, would you."

_"Hey, Danny – I'm standing outside your place, Brah. Doesn't look like you're here... and let's face it there's nowhere much to hide in there! So, where are you, huh? ...Danny, Steve says call him back."_

"He's **what**?"

Chin almost felt sorry for the young officer in front of them. Almost.

Steve's shout of disbelief drew startled glances from others around them in the downstairs holding area of HPD HQ.

"You're telling me you let him go?" Steve continued. "Why the hell did you do that?"

"He had a lawyer..." the young recruit began. This was not a good day for Officer Charlie Mililani.

"He called a lawyer?"

"Err...no...actually..." The rookie stammered as he looked over the computer screen and then down to the opened log in front of him. "No, no, he didn't actually make a call...but some lawyer turned up said he was representing him ...He hadn't actually been charged with anything and he'd been here for like...The guy said we couldn't hold him any longer ..." His querulous voice petered out in the face of Steve's thunderous look and he glanced around for support from his superiors. From anyone. But everyone nearby was averting their eyes from the sight of the head of the Islands' elite crime squad looming over their unfortunate colleague, just pleased that rage wasn't directed at them.

"You didn't think to call Five-0 to see if we wanted him released? You didn't think we might need to speak to him some more?" Chin had noticed before how Steve was at his most dangerous when his voice was at its lowest. He was positively growling now.

"What's this lawyer's name?"

Officer Mililani consulted the screen again. "David Watts. Seemed like a real hot shot...er...out of Los Angeles." He had a look that said only now was he thinking that this might be slightly odd. "He...er...left a card..." His hand was shaking as he passed it to Steve and as the SEAL stormed away he called out hesitantly.

"I did tell your man, Williams..."

Steve and Chin turned back and Mililani wished he'd kept his mouth shut.

"What?"

"Williams...the Haole...he...er, called an hour ago...I told him Martinez had been sprung."

Steve, stepped up close to the young officer's desk and Mililani wished he could just disappear beneath it to take shelter as he would for an impending hurricane.

"I hope you like directing traffic, officer, because it seems that's about all you're good for. I could have your badge for this," he threatened. "And it's _Detective_ Williams to you."

In the silence that fell after Steve and Chin left, the rookie was left wondering if he really had made the right career choice.

The name checked out. David Watts was indeed a partner in a high powered firm of Los Angeles lawyers, and he had a secretary well trained in the art of stalling.

"No, Mr Watts isn't in...No, I'm sorry he won't be in the office for a few days...Yes, I will pass a message to him but I cannot say when he'll get back to you." Her responses were sing-song and annoying, she was apparently unimpressed with threats from Five-0. It remained unclear who the guy was working for or how a two-bit criminal like Soda Martinez would have the connections to call upon his services.

The address cited on Soda's release forms proved to be a hostel where they had not heard of him at all, he was in the wind.

The Five-0 team felt as though they were making precisely no progress and time was slipping by.

In the late afternoon, while the others grabbed a quick coffee, Steve stared out of the window of his office at a gathering bank of cloud on the horizon. The gray mass roiled and built like a plumping duvet. The islands were in for a soaking. Steve remembered a local forecast he'd seen, something about an unusual confluence of pressures..._yeah, that'd fit._..

The sharp trill of his cell phone broke the heavy stillness.

A quick glance ...not Danny.

"Hello, Steve? It's Rachel."

Hearing his friend's ex-wife put Steve on immediate alert but he kept it friendly. "Hey Rachel, how are you?"

"Fine...er, I just wanted to talk to you...I'm sorry to call like this...It's about Danny," she sounded anxious.

"It's just he didn't pick Grace up last night and canceled his day with her today." She hesitated a moment. "I know his job means he has to change plans sometimes – believe me, I do know that," her voice took on the irritated tone that Steve recognized from countless other calls before. However, when she continued it was once again with apparent concern. "But... something seemed different last night and well..._he_ seemed different."

Steve sighed. This was going to be hard. "Rachel, it _is_ work but I can't..."

"It's just that he's missed a few days with her recently and she's beginning to notice, and you know how Danny feels about being with her. He always makes such a fuss if I have to change anything, which sometimes I do you know, and when he couldn't make her school picnic last month and then the surf club luau...Well, that's their _thing_ together and Grace pretends like it doesn't matter, because, well, you know her Daddy can do no wrong, but she says he's been kind of grumpy lately and really..." Steve waited while Rachel took a much needed breath. "I'm just worried about him."

_Join the club..._

"Rachel...He's been working on a case that's taken up a lot of his free time. We're still working on it" ..._not a lie!_..."I think it's just really taken it out of him..."

"Is it to do with Matt?" she interrupted. "Because I know that really hit him hard. You don't know them together. They were so close, his family... and to have him do that...to do that to Danny...I know he's had to go home to his family a few times but he's not talking to me about it now."

"Yeah, it has to do with what Matt got into," Steve could admit that much to her at least. "But Rachel, I really can't discuss it. It's ongoing." …_Except we don't know where it's going ...or how..._Steve didn't allow his doubts to register in his tone when he continued. "Look, I'll have him call you as soon as I can, okay. And tell Gracie that if anyone can cure her Daddy's grumpiness it's her. Don't worry Rachel, Danny will be okay."

Steve signed off with more certainty than he felt.

_"Danny! Just had your ex-wife bending my ear about you. I'm guessing you've got a few of her calls on your voice mail too, huh? And Grace? She says you're grumpy. Like that's news to anyone who knows you...So, call them...And call me!"_

The first fat drops of rain smacked against the window, hitting hard and exploding like tiny liquid eruptions. Slowly at first, then more, until the glass became blurred with torrents. Nobody ever told the tourists about Hawaiian downpours, Steve mused as he stood wondering about Danny's secrets. How easy it is to overlook something that can spoil something so good.

**Tbc**


	7. Chapter 6

**_Chapter 6_**

* * *

><p><em>I'm Alice in freaking Wonderland<em>...

Danny shook his head as soon as the thought formed, uninvited... _Not the most manly analogy, Danno ...Christ, I'm losing it_...But it really seemed as though he might be falling right through the world as he knew it, the world where he still had some control.

Was it only yesterday that he'd been telling Steve of his love of reading? He hadn't been lying.

When he was a little kid he'd enjoyed that book. He remembered evenings, squashed together with Matt and his elder sister, listening to his Mom's voice reading it aloud at bedtime. But now, like its heroine, he wondered where and when this fall would ever end.

Since his brother's pained face had appeared on that phone, the spiral had continued, like a bad trip.

A desperate trawl through all his previous research had served only to remind him of the improbability of finding wherever Matt might be held. There was nothing in the photo to suggest a location where he'd been or where he was and he had nothing to go on.

Since the evening when he'd stepped onto that plane, Danny hadn't heard from him. They'd always kept in regular touch before that, more so since Danny's divorce and Matt's self appointment as his counselor. The silence was a finality that fueled his actions.

In those first days, he'd traced the plane's flight plan to San Francisco. A two day trip to the mainland to review a jigsaw of traffic cameras had eventually shown the black sedan that had picked him up. It was registered to a hire company but the rental name proved false and with that, Matt was really gone.

Danny had returned, defeated, to Hawaii with no idea, then or since, whether Matt's new job for the cartel meant he'd been in South America, or whether that is where he was now being tortured. He had to tackle it differently.

Pedro Fuentez was not a resident in the islands, more of an occasional visitor, but Danny had the means to track his visits to preferred hotels and rented luxury pads. After his stop-off, at Big Island Flowers he began a tour of the likely haunts of his quarry._..Why question the monkey if the organ grinder is around?_

Offices, units, bars, everywhere he came up blank. Fuentez was nowhere to be found. However, on the burner phone he'd been left, Danny himself proved all too easy to contact.

Veering sharply off the road into a layby, he answered the expected call on its second ring.

"You got our package." A statement, but not from Fuentez or Kahumoku. One of their men. Not a voice he knew.

"What do you want?"

"Straight to the point. That's good," the voice rumbled. "It's not what. It's who."

"You want _me_?" Danny asked. His knuckles whitened as he gripped the phone hard. "Why didn't you say so? Just tell me where to come, 'cause believe me, I really want to meet you too...we've got a lot to talk about you and me, you sadistic son-of-a-bitch."

"Not you. But someone you can get for us." The voice remained level and emotionless.

Danny's mind was racing and his mouth went with it. "You think I'm gonna deliver you some other piece of meat to butcher?..I'm gonna hunt you d..."

"Your brother still has nine other fingers left, Detective. Either you listen to me now or we will send you another. Then another. Then another...Maybe a whole hand..."

Danny ground his jaws together to stop himself from launching into a verbal attack that would do no good. He needed to know the score.

"Are you ready to listen?" The voice demanded calmly and Danny felt another part of his world spin away as he was forced to do just that.

**5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0**

Steve dashed from the Camaro to Kamekona's kiosk and was greeted by the Hawaiian's glum face peering out at the rain.

"Not the weather for shave ice, huh?" he sympathized.

"Nah, this rain is bad for business for sure," the big man agreed. "It's gonna wash away my days profits, man. Not good." He passed a careless wipe of a cloth over the counter between them, and looked up at Steve expectantly. "You come to put some dollars my way?"

"Just came to ask for your help...you seen Danny in the last couple of days?"

"Something's going on with the Haole, huh?" Kamekano's nodded reply was confirmation enough but he didn't need further encouragement to voice his own concerns.

"I knew that box was full of no good...He didn't say nothing but Jersey, he looked bad, man. Like sick, y'know..."

"What box?" Steve demanded.

"Some guy came by yesterday – told me to give Jersey a package. And a phone," the round face was creased with concentration and worry. "Blondie came over and, brah, I know he's a Haole and all, but I've never seen no white guy go _so _white as he did. Like my coconut ice, man. Didn't have to see what it was to see it was bad. I knew it." Kamekano drifted off in his thoughts over what he'd witnessed.

Steve slapped the counter to bring him back.

"And?"

"And nothing, man. He took off without saying a thing. Took off fast."

"Took off in what? What was he driving?" ._..APB Danny? Really?..._Steve hated the thought of tracking his partner but it was beginning to look as though he would have to resort to it.

Kamekona looked sheepish and his eyes darted away from Steve's.

"The hatchback."

"What hatchback?"

"Er...the hatchback I found for him," the big Hawaiian took a glance up at Steve's face and hurried on. "Couple of months back he asked me to find him a car to use. Said it had to be kinda ordinary, you know? So I loaned him my cousin's old car...She'd not using it on account of her eyes, man...she's got bad eyes and can't drive no more."

"What is it?"

"Doctor says it's glaucoma..."

Steve slapped the counter again in his frustration.

"Oh...er, the car...it's one of them Ford compacts ... Fiesta, I think...red."

"Where's he been keeping it?"

Kamekona never did anything very fast but right now Steve was straining to keep his patience, as his informant thought for a long moment.

"Think it's up at that shack," he said slowly. "You know, the one he's been using, off the inner road? Took it up there for him when he got into some trouble at a bar and couldn't pick it up last month. You know, when he got a little beat up?"

_The black eye ...And, come to think of it, he'd been holding himself stiffly too...bruised ribs?_

Steve reached up above Kamekano's head and grabbed the kiosk's roller shutter, slamming it down hard.

"Hey..."

"You're closing..." Steve leaned through the open door and grabbed the big man's arm. "Business is bust anyway. Come on, we're going for a ride."

The latest revelations built upon Steve's ever growing urge to find his partner and give him a slap. First though he had to make sure he was okay.

**5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0 **

"Danny...please..."

The sound of his brother's voice froze Danny in place. It was thin and high. He sounded so scared. It brought an instant flashback to their childhood when Danny had always been the first point of call for help against the neighborhood bullies..._Hey! You got some sort of disability? Cos you seem to have grown a bike out your ass – and it ain't yours. Give it back...Hey! See this fist? Well, you're gonna get a real close-up look if you don't leave my brother alone..._ But that had been when they were kids and the topsy turvy world he was living in now was not so simple.

Matt's voice cut off and there was the sound of movement on the line until another took over.

"That was just to let you know your brother's still with us, still alive, and we're still waiting."

"Let me speak to him. Put him on again." Danny demanded.

"Did you do what we asked?"

"Let me speak to him and then I'll speak to you." Danny fought to keep his voice as level as that of Matt's captor. He had to create some time. He needed time.

"You're in no position to bargain," the voice warned. "Or should I remind you, _he's_ in no position for you to bargain."

"Look, you mindless, sadistic goon, I know and you know that you are not the one making the decisions here. You got your boss there too? Or is he keeping his distance from this little bit of theatre? 'Cause you know, he may think he's safe, directing this Tarantino gore-fest from up in the gods but I can tell you this now, I'm gonna haul you up from the front row and give you the beating you deserve when I find you. And then I _will_ be bringing him down."

In the stuffy little room where Danny stood the only sound was the quiet thrum of technology at work, but he felt awestruck eyes upon him.

_Come on ...More time...give me time..._

More movement and a rustling was followed by a breath and then Matt's voice was back, only now it was gabbling and frantic.

"Danny, don't! **Don't** you do it. This is my fault... just mine. **Don't** you ruin your life for m..."

The unmistakeable sound of a fist hitting flesh ended Matt's desperate shouts and in the loud thud and cry of pain that followed, Danny's imagination saw his brother crashing over in the chair that he was bound to.

"Hey!" he shouted at the phone. "Hey..."

He waited and stole a glance to his side where fingers tapped on keys and a green screen illuminated the pale face of his nervous companion.

"So, Detective," the deep voice was back. "Do you have what we want?"

_Don't kill him...don't kill him..._

In his abandonment those months ago, Danny had been shocked to discover he didn't know his brother as well as he had thought he did. Now though he was certain he knew him well enough to have heard the absolute sincerity of his brother's message - beyond the fear and the pain of Matt's pleas was a determination and an apology and a total absolution.

Danny took a deep breath.

"No."

_Oh Matty_...

His intention was to bluff and stall but Danny couldn't stop an image of Matt's dead body flashing before his eyes and, after only a moment's hesitation, he wavered.

"Look … It's not that easy. We can still do a deal ...I just need some time...you don't have to do th.."

"It seems to me Detective, that you might need some further persuasion. We'll be in touch."

Danny stared at the phone in horror as the line went dead, then turned to the shocked face gazing up at him.

"Anything?" he demanded.

"Sorry, Dude."

The quiet apology left Danny's gut clenching harder and his world falling faster than ever before.

**5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0 **

Steve recognized where their route was taking them as soon as they neared the dirt track. It resembled more of a muddy stream in the pouring rain. He wished he'd brought his truck as the low slung Camaro slid and slipped over its bumps and dips. The little house where it led though was unknown.

Taking in its ramshackle state, Steve shook his head. Only Danny could manage to find somewhere even worse than his own apartment.

The locked door was no barrier to his well placed kick but the only hints to Danny's presence there were a couple of discarded cups from his partner's favorite coffee shop, his baseball team mug, and an abandoned slice of pizza. No pineapple.

He wasted no more time and Kamekona had only just prized himself out of the car and was still lumbering up the broken wooden steps as he pushed past him, heading through the brush at the side of the house towards the sound of loud music beyond.

No need to knock here either. The door to the next wooden shack stood open. It was larger and in better repair. Lived in. The soft glow of multi-colored lights warmed the darkness outside and within, from where a pulsing beat was making the windows vibrate. The unmistakeable smell of marijuana filled the air and Steve followed the hazy trail to a low backed sofa and a familiar figure.

"Hello Adam."

Adam Charles, dope addict, former small-time fraudster and now a major league computer hacker, defied his apparently baked state to leap up in surprise. A fat joint dropped from his lips, as his face registered a moment of panic before falling slack in resignation. He flopped back down into his pillowed nest as Steve crossed to the stereo in the corner and whipped the music down.

"Dude..."

"I'm thinking you might be able to help me find my partner."

"Dude..." He was scrabbling to find the lit joint that had slipped between the cushions.

Steve reached in and snatched it from his fingers.

"Hey, Dude!"

Leaning down to crush it into a tin lid that served as an ashtray at Adam's side, he stayed poised with his face inches from the other man.

"Stop duding me, and just tell me what you know."

Adam's drug stewed brain made the telling longer than it should have been but Steve had seen the hidden computers in his back room before, when he and Danny had used his expertise to help break a cyber terrorism case. Even totally lagged, this young dope head had the skills to break most technology. So his explanation was not really that surprising. The fact that Danny had done all this with him, in secret, still was.

Accessing the Government's network computer. Breaking heavy grade encryption. Burning a trail through the patterns of endless codes. Forging remote access through countless infrastructure systems.

_Oh...Chin's gonna tear you a new one, Brah ...all those times you palmed the computer searches off on him, and you're a geek at heart after all._..Steve was full of admiration at what his friend had managed to do.

At the end, when he stayed quiet, Adam became anxious. "Dude, it wasn't me...I just, you know, facilitated him...He had all kinds of access but, you know, he was kinda flailing, man. Lost, you know? But kind of driven too, like possessed. Wouldn't tell me where all that came from though. Y'know, he's been good to me ... in the past I mean. For a cop, y'know...I didn't see him most of the time. Once he took that dump next door, I extended my wi-fi to his place, boosted the band, and he worked from there. I hadn't even seen him for a couple of weeks 'til this afternoon..."

"He was here this afternoon? When?"

Adam's brow furrowed in childlike concentration. "A few hours ago maybe," he looked vaguely up at a wooden clock on the wall. It was stopped and the dead flies lying in the bottom of its glass face suggested it had been like that for a while. His eyes snapped back to Steve with a sudden clarity.

"I couldn't help him this time though. I mean, it ain't easy tracing a phone call ...with hardly any notice...I mean, you _can_ do it...You dudes do it all the time, right? But, man, he blew in here and I didn't have any time to set it up..."

"Wait," Steve held up a hand. "Wait. You set up a phone trace? Who was he trying to trace?"

Adam was wide-eyed at his memory of the drama.

"His brother, man...someone's got his brother...they're beating him n'stuff. But your man, he said he wasn't gonna do what they wanted, he just said no and..." he shrugged helplessly. "It sounded real bad, dude."

Steve let out a long breath between pursed lips. _Oh yes, this is real bad, alright_... In fact, for Danny he doubted it could be any worse.

**5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0**

Danny leaned his palms against the tiles of the shower and allowed the hot water to beat down on his shoulders, trying to ease the tensions that had built into an ache during the course of his nightmare day. The water mingled with tears he couldn't stop. He'd failed his brother again. He'd signed his death warrant..._no-no-no-no-no-no-no..._

He watched the water swirling down the plug hole and his heart went with it. Stepping out quickly, he grabbed for a towel and glanced again at the now hated phone he'd left on the side.

After no sleep the night before, and still in shock over the feared consequences of his botched attempt to reason with a psycho, he'd been left with nothing in his reserves. He knew he was going to crash but when the next drop in this headfirst bungee-fall came, and it would, he needed to be ready. Much as he resented the weariness, he didn't know where to turn next and he'd needed a pit stop.

The burner phone sat alongside his own cell. Stepping into his apartment half an hour before he'd been in a stupor of self loathing. All day he'd purposely avoided listening to any of the many messages from Steve and his team, simply noting the number and growing frequency. He'd kept his cell off so he wouldn't be tempted..._My mess...my fault..._

Now though his friends' concern for him and Rachel's calls, first angry then worried, made him want to run for their help.

_God, Steve...what have I done? What have I done?..._He was exhausted..._Alice in fucking Wonderland...no-no-no...Matty..._

The waiting was unbearable. He just wanted to know when this freefall would finally stop_._

And then it did.

With the latest two tone alert, Danny Williams hit ground zero and felt his world finally shatter.

The image before him left him gasping for breath and he clutched it to his still bare chest, enfolding it and desperately holding it against himself with both hands, eyes squeezed shut against the latest horror, wishing it was not true but knowing it was.

"No-no-no-no-no..." For many minutes Danny rocked back and forth and begged into the air of the empty apartment.

Then came clarity. Sudden and piercing in the spinning engulfing darkness.

Launching himself towards his one and only closet, he quickly pulled on jeans and a tee-shirt. In moments, the uniform look of the duty cop Danny had always been so proud to be was gone, made redundant and inappropriate by what he knew he would now have to be and do.

With a final glance at the picture on the small screen, he pocketed both phones, pulled open the door and headed out into the driving rain. It was kind of liberating, this feeling that he could finally fall no further.

**TBC...**


	8. Chapter 7

**A/N Thanks so much for reading and especially for reviewing - it's great to know what's working for you all. **

**So, at last, we've caught up with the scene from the prologue...**

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><p><strong>Chapter 7<strong>

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><p>Steve was always an early riser but this morning it was not for a run, or a swim, or for any part of his habitual fitness regime. This time it was for the Governor.<p>

A terse order to meet at HPD HQ, nothing more.

The previous night he'd finally crashed late, when all possible leads had nowhere left to go. He'd reviewed Chin and Kono's findings – agreeing with their assessment that there was no choice now but to move with what they knew within the next day and eventually persuading them to also try to grab a few hours of sleep in preparation.

Rest had proved impossible however, disturbed by the blurring rattle of rain and recriminations. And worry. Getting up, even before it was light, came as a relief and he headed to the meeting immediately.

The worst of the storm may have passed but the next wiggling front was not quite done with the islands yet. The sky was slowly turning to a khaki smudge as another wall of bad weather gathered itself, adding to the heavy sense of foreboding Steve could not shake.

That dread grew when he saw who was waiting for him and it found terrible expression in the grainy pictures on the screens of a stuffy audio visual evidence suite.

At another time, watching his partner assault an FBI agent might have amused him somewhat. Watching him abduct Soda Martinez did not.

The closed-circuit footage was not good, but it was good enough to be really, really bad for Danny.

"So Commander," Governor Jameson's words broke the quiet and jolted him from his shock. "Any idea why one of your team just made off with our star witness in a drugs and murder trial."

Steve felt the eyes of the Governor, the Chief of Police and the FBI agent upon him, as he stared at the screens, reliving his partner's actions, the deliberation, the assault, the snatch.

_Oh Brah...gotta be a bargaining chip...your brother...your secrets...but..._

"A drugs and murder trial? No, Soda Martinez is a Five-0 informant in a gun smuggling operation. Wait..." Steve turned quickly on Special Agent Edward Kipton..._just why are you here?... _The cameras must have been set up as some sort of FBI protection but did about as much good as the unsuspecting agent on guard. Danny had ignored them and clobbered the other. Now he was the star of his own scary movie - scary for its implications.

Steve's mind rapidly computed what he'd seen. "_You_ sprung Martinez out of holding...it was a bureau lawyer that pitched up out of nowhere..." He had to defend Danny somehow.

Steve turned next to the Governor. "This," he waved at the screens, "this is all tied to a case invol..."

"I know what this is tied to Commander," the Governor interrupted. She looked to Kipton with irritation. "Or, I should say, I know _now_. You two need to talk."

Chief Maleo managed to look both grim and smug as he held out a polite ushering arm to her. This confirmation of his worst suspicions about her special unit meant relations between HPD and Five-0 had just taken another dive. Jameson acknowledged his gesture and turned to leave but hesitated and withdrew an envelope from her pocket, handing it to Steve as she passed.

"This was delivered to my office sometime last night. Sometime before that happened," she nodded at the now black screens. "Hopefully, I won't be needing such a get out... but I have made a copy, just in case."

As she left, Steve slowly opened the envelope addressed in a familiar hand and read the signed message on the sheet inside. Succinct and unequivocal, it was Danny Williams' resignation.

_Oh Danny, buddy, just what is it you are planning to do now?..._.

Eddie Kipton stepped forward.

"Look McGarrett, I know we didn't have a good start, and yes, I _do_ know you sold us a crock over Danny's brother when he gave us the slip before, but it looks like we've got to work together now..."

"What the hell do you know about all this?" Steve could barely contain his anger.

"There's something you should see..." Kipton was eager to create some distance between them and slipped out the door quickly. But within two steps down the corridor he was stopped and spun around to be pressed up against the wall.

"Now, look here, if you think I'm gonna..." Steve's fists were bunched in the front of Kipton's shirt and passers-by, police officers, hesitated to see where it would go.

"Please, Commander ... We're on the same side. Really. Let's go to your department ... I can explain." Kipton reasoned with Steve even as he glanced around nervously under the SEAL's glare.

Forcing himself to release his hold, Steve pushed the agent ahead of him to the stairs – he didn't trust himself in the confined space of the elevator with this weasel – but swiping the glass doors to the Five-0 offices, he stopped in his tracks.

Piled high on the central computerized desk were dozens of box files.

"I had these brought here so you could see exactly what Danny's been doing," Kipton said.

Steve moved forward and opened the nearest file. Official evidence sheets, police surveillance forms, photos, lists of contacts, lists of businesses, printouts. All annotated with dates and times and signed. All so procedurally correct.

_Of course, Danny ...you cop, you. _

Steve leafed through the contents of the other files ..._prostitution, loansharking, protection, drugs_... his grim expression twitched into a small smile of wonder. Hearing the doors open behind him, he turned to find Chin and Kono entering. They walked over to join him in the perusal of the mass of accumulated evidence.

Steve gestured briefly to the agent beside him.

"This is Special Agent Edward Kipton. He apparently knows all about Danny's investigation," Steve acknowledged the cousins' surprised looks. "It's bigger than he let on," he said, nodding at the collection in front of them.

"These are just the hard copies," Kipton explained. "Everything has been logged on the Bureau computer too, of course."

"Of course..." Steve nodded. "So, tell us, Special Agent Kipton ...just how did the Feds get an invite to this party, when he shut the rest of us out?"

"Danny came to us," he said simply. "He laid it on the line, said he was going to get whatever he could on Fuentez. He'd already made a start but with a guy like that, with international connections and linked to the cartels, he knew anything he did would be picked up." Kipton shrugged.

"We _are_ actually pretty good at this stuff," he continued. "Fuentez was known to us. We already had him tagged as a money man for the cartel. Calls himself an accountant, has a good business brain, seems he's more a facilitator. We have programs that highlight any outside interest, any anomalies, any dipping into accounts or itineraries. Any suspicious sniff will be flagged."

"Yeah, we know how it works." Steve prompted..._Come on, we don't have time for this..._

"Well then, you'll also know that's about _all_ we can do most of the time to keep tabs on people like Fuentez. But it's not enough. We're short-staffed Commander. That's the truth of it. Since 9/11, even with Bin Laden gone, terrorism is still top of our list and with cutbacks we just don't have the manpower to follow up on everything we'd like to. Especially here in Hawaii."

Steve nodded. It was a well known issue amongst the law enforcement agencies. Sadly, also amongst the criminals.

"So, here was Danny offering to do the leg work we couldn't do. In fact he was already doing it. In return, we gave him Bureau access and legitimacy. He reckoned he couldn't make it a Five-0 case until he had enough proof, said you already have too much on your plate to allow him the time to do this full time so he took it on as a personal thing." Kipton pointed to the boxes before them.

"It paid off. Danny has made the link between Fuentez and Kahumoku's local businesses. He realized this was the beginning of what the cartel obviously hopes will be a beneficial expansion. He kept me in the loop and I kept a check on the stuff that could affect any other investigations that are ongoing. You know, _elsewhere_." His emphasis was unnecessary.

Steve remembered Danny's concern for those undercover agents and informants whose lives could be threatened in the drugs war being waged all around the world. That and his instinctive fear of lousing things up with the legal threat of personal prejudice. So, three days ago, in typical Danny-fashion, when his own investigation had clashed with the possibility of a weapons smuggling ring, he'd stepped away, giving Five-0 just enough to work on without blowing both cases out of the water.

"He's a good cop." Kipton said.

"Yeah, he is," Steve agreed. "But they've got his brother."

Chin and Kono tensed. Steve had updated them on what he'd discovered at Adam Charles's place the previous night. All of them could imagine what Matthew Williams' torture was doing to their friend.

"I know. They cut off his finger ...sent it to him."

_Oh shit.._.

Steve winced at Kipton's revelation. He'd feared it would be something like that. Since Kamekona's description of Danny's special delivery two nights ago, he knew it must be something awful. It made sense of Danny's reported visit to Keo Kahumoku and later to his tame computer genius.

"We have it in our lab to test, to confirm if it is that of Matthew Williams – Danny brought it in. That's when I told him we had Soda." Kipton sounded disturbed.

"Look, I admire Danny for what he's done. He's got no love for the Bureau, I know that. He blames us for not stepping in to stop his brother before he got in too deep with the cartel but we've got on okay these last couple of months. He's a good cop," he repeated. "I want to help here."

Steve could see the guy was sincere. He looked almost as worried as he felt himself.

"So, why did you bust Soda Martinez out so quickly?" Steve asked. "We hadn't even established his value in our own weapons investigation yet, let alone in Danny's crusade."

"Danny called me as soon as he realised there might be a clash of interests. We happened to have a Bureau attorney already here on other business and I simply sent him along. Standard procedure for anything linked to an FBI case. That would have been it - just cursory y'know? But after only twenty four hours in your cells, he just suddenly spilled all this other stuff. I think maybe you scared him," Kipton explained with a wry grin. "Turns out he knows a hell of a lot more than he told you." Steve noted that Kipton at least had the good grace not to look too smug.

"Once he had legal advice on the advantages of our witness protection program, old Soda came up with all kinds of interesting details about the coke that's already being brought in." He hesitated for dramatic effect. "And the fact that he saw Keo Kahumoku kill one of his workers. Guy called Soon Li? ...the guy who got Soda into the gig in the first place."

Steve nodded in recognition of the name from his aborted interview with Soda.

"Soda saw Kahumoko shoot him in the head and dump his body. We've got a location, we can dig it up. Through Danny, we've already linked Kahumoku to Fuentez and if we can get Soda into court we can get both of them for the drugs _and_ the murder. We'd be happy enough to go with that but, with Five-0's help, we can get them on the weapons too."

So, there it was .._ Just one problem..._

"But now we've lost Soda _and_ Danny."

Chin and Kono stared at Steve. They hadn't heard the latest turn of events.

"Danny broke Soda out of FBI custody last night...he's working to his own agenda." _Yeah, Danny...like you haven't been doing that all along... _But this was different. Steve could understand Danny's desperation but something in his latest actions didn't gel with all that he knew of his friend. Chin immediately saw it too.

"I thought you said he told them he _wouldn't_ do that. He turned them down." Chin looked at Steve for confirmation, remembering what he'd been told of the conversation with Adam Charles.

"They sent him his brother's finger, for God's sake," Kono said softly. "Maybe they did something else..."

Even as she said it, realization hit the team simultaneously.

"Grace!"

Three voices expressed the certainty together. Nothing else could make Danny react as he had. Nothing else would make him throw away all that he stood for.

_Gracie...Oh Danny, I'm so sorry..._Steve thought back to the CCTV images and the haunted, dangerous look on his friend's face.

Kipton, Chin and Kono watched as he quickly dialed Rachel's home number.

"Nothing." The team were already moving as Steve gave the order. "Let's go."

"Shouldn't we alert a SWAT team, or something?" Kipton called as he ran with the others down the stairs.

"Don't yet know what we're gonna find," Chin answered over his shoulder. "We can call them from there..." He glanced over at Steve and noted the rigid set to his shoulders as he strode towards the car. Their boss was in full on attack mode now.

Just as he reached the door of the Camaro, Steve's speed was halted by the tone of his cell. A familiar tone that he hadn't heard for too long. He grabbed it and spun around.

"Danny!"

"Steve..." Even in one word he could hear his partner's wretched despair.

The two friends spoke the awful truth at the same time.

"They've got Grace!"

"I know, Danny...where are you?"

Chin and Kono stepped forward. They wanted to be close to their friend too but Steve cupped his hand over the handset and hunched away to listen.

"I need your help, Steve. Just you, man...I don't have time to explain now...It's gotta be just you." Danny's voice sounded distracted as though he was on the move. His breathing was heavy as though he was doing something else at the same time, lifting something maybe.

"There's a shack up near..."

"Yeah, I've been there..."

"Come meet me there...right now, Steve." He didn't wait for an explanation of how Steve knew..._God, he sounds desperate..._Steve glanced at Chin and Kono, their faces showing concern and query.

"We're on our..." he began.

"**No!**..**Just you, man**," Danny shouted. A slight hesitation and then Steve heard a hitch in his breath. "Please...Just you...I'll explain when you get here...make it quick."

Steve gestured to the others to take their own vehicles as he grabbed the handle of the Camaro's door.

"I'll be there in thirty minutes, Brah...Just...just hang on Danny, okay? I'll be there, man."

Danny's line shut off immediately and Steve called through his window even as he began to peel out of the car park.

"Danny's at the shack …He's wound tight. Something's going down... You get to Rachel's but don't do anything until you hear from me."

Black smoke rose from his tires as he careered away and the rest of the team headed off in the opposite direction.

**5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0**

Steve's driving cut his journey by five minutes and he crunched to a halt outside Danny's hideout with a spray of dirt against the broken boards.

Danny was waiting for him, pale and rigid, his unshaven face a hard mask that Steve could see through only too clearly. He leapt up the steps and might have clasped Danny's shoulders, instinctively wanting to grab him to offer support, but Danny shied away into the dark interior..._Still with the distance, Danny..._

He was pacing in the dinginess and Steve could see he was near breaking point.

"They've taken Grace."

As an opener, it was redundant. Steve clearly knew this latest horrible twist but to Danny that was all that mattered now. He pressed on so his friend, his partner, would know everything..._You owe it to him...finally, to be honest...admit what you've done...what a screw up you are..._

"They've got Matty too...they wanted Martinez in exchange...I told them no...Thought I could bargain or something." Arms held tense and crossed over his chest, hands gripping hard at his biceps, Danny's blue eyes pierced the gloom and reflected his horror. "They cut his finger off, man...sent it to me in a fucking box," he huffed mirthlessly in self disgust. It came out as a strangled sob. "...and I thought I could bargain with them!"

"I know," Steve said quietly, managing his tone to try to calm his friend. "Kipton has explained everything..."

"And Rachel...I think she's being held at the house," Danny interrupted and then stopped himself and turned a pained look on his partner.

"I should have told you...I should have...way back. In the beginning...I'm sorry... I thought I could do this but ..." He swept his hands back though his hair and gripped the back of his head..._feels like it's gonna explode_... Taking a couple of deep breaths, he fought to master his emotions ..._have to get through this...there's no time for this..._

When he began again it was in a low, deliberate voice and Steve found himself in awe of the self control it was taking.

"They're gonna call to set up an exchange," He glanced at his watch. "Soon. Any minute. They warned, no outside interference and I don't think there's gonna be any time to set anything up anyway. And ...I can't risk Grace."

He looked at Steve again with a gaze so intense that Steve could read it as clearly as if he was still speaking...

._..Forgive me. I need you. Please help me... _

What came out however, was more typically Danny in tone and delivery. Even his hands were now waving in that way that often fascinated Steve.

"You know how, when you get me into one of those ridiculously dangerous, no-chance-in-hell-are-we-getting-out-of-this-alive situations that you think are so normal and just go to show that you have learned nothing about police work despite my experience and excellent tuition, I'm always trying to drum into that thick SEAL skull of yours to always take back-up? Well man, this time, _you're it_." It was forced and sounded it. Not really a true Danny rant but somehow he even managed a feint smile at its climax.

Steve pursed his lips and grinned back, thin and tight with the gravity of the situation but successfully conveying what he felt for his friend.

"Whatever you need, Danny. I'll have your back, you know that." _...Always..._

He reached out and cupped a hand around the back of Danny's neck, giving it a small shake of assurance, trying to give him strength in whatever was going to go down. He could feel the tension in the hard muscles but as his partner dipped his head under the gesture of comfort, also registered the resolution there.

"So, any idea what numbers we're talking about?" Steve's training kicked in hard. He needed an idea of what they were up against.

"Oh… from what I know of these guys, I imagine a dozen or so well armed goons, working for two criminal, probably psychotic, bastards who have been made even more dangerous by the pressure of knowing their gig is blown and they are now at the center of an FBI, Five-0 investigation that could lead to big trouble, not only with the law but also with their cartel bosses, who are not known for their understanding and gentle ways." Danny raised his eyebrows with something that Steve might have seen as satisfaction if not for the utter exhaustion that also played over the handsome face.

"Huh. Well, I like a challenge," Steve muttered. "So, you have a plan for this exchange?"

Danny moved towards the outside and Steve followed until his friend stopped and pressed his hand against the centre of his chest, forcing him to look at him.

"Simple. The plan is you get Grace out. That's it!" His voice was hard. "That's it!"

"You get my daughter out of there. If anyone can do it, it's you." Danny had never been so sure of anything in his life. Steve was Gracie's best hope. _His_ only hope for her.

"Just _save Grace._ And Matt if he's there," he added, but under Danny's hard stare, Steve was left with no illusions as to the priorities.

He nodded his understanding and Danny turned away again.

"And you?" Steve called to his retreating back.

Danny stepped over to the small red car parked at the side of the building and opened up the hatchback, nodding inside.

"Me? I'll be causing a distraction."

Steve's eyes widened as he took in the sweating bulk of Soda Martinez, doubled over, tied up and gagged in the cramped trunk. The guy barely fit inside, especially with what was tied around him. He was making muffled noises behind the duct tape and his eyes pleaded with Steve who turned his own towards Danny..._Oh Man!...are you kidding me?_

Any reservations he might have expressed were halted though, as a ring-tone broke the moment of shocked silence.

Despite the muggy, moist heat of a day bracing itself for another storm, Danny felt a coldness wrap around him. His arm was heavy in bringing the phone to his ear.

Since seeing that picture of Grace, terrified and tear stained, held tight against Matt's chest, partially shielded by his blood spattered arms, his heart had ached with a painful, desperate need to _save_ his little girl. It filled him now with a seething rage that he was barely able to contain and he'd surprised even himself to discover just how far he would go to do it.

Steve held his breath and watched as his friend listened and then turned to him.

"It's on...Let's go."

**Tbc...**


	9. Chapter 8

**A/N I'm excited to be posting this chapter - it contains the scene that popped into my head to inspire the whole story. I do love a bit of action. I really hope this works for you - let me know.**

**Thanks, as always, for reading and reviewing.**

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><p><strong>Chapter 8<strong>

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><p><em>You were right, <em>Steve thought, as he took in the scene. Danny had said there would be no time to call for extra help and sure enough, they really had no choice here..._Just you and me Danno._

He had to admit, as a tactician himself, this was a good place for its purpose.

A long corrugated iron storage shed, rusting and creaking in the strengthening breeze. Large and faded white writing showed it had once housed Hawaiian Delight Fruit Packers Ltd but there was no further evidence now of any legitimate business happening here. Its loosened sheets flapped and banged against each other like some experimental percussion band. One side was open where the doors had long since dropped away from their decayed hinges. Access to the remote spot was only via one muddy track, in and out, any approach that way could be clearly seen.

But Steve wasn't coming that way.

He'd left in Danny's wake but peeled away a mile from the destination they'd been given, testing the Camaro's non-existent off-road capabilities to the limit. A quarter of a mile out, he abandoned it, checked his weapons and ammo and took off at a hard, distance eating run.

By the time he crested the hill on the eastern side of the building, the breeze was gusting and the rain was starting again, mixing now with the sweat that ran from his brow and down his back. He slowed his breathing and could make out the sound of Danny's car approaching.

A quick glance to his left and he saw the red ford making its way down the track. Down and to his right he could see into the building and counted at least eight men lounging in readiness but he was aware there could be more. Four vehicles were parked outside, including a silver Jag. Inside, a black Grand Cherokee Jeep with darkened windows. He couldn't see who was inside but from the way three men ranged close to it, Steve guessed that was where the hostages were being held.

_We're coming for you Gracie...Your dad's coming... _

As the men were also alerted to Danny's arrival, they moved towards the doorway. Steve took advantage of their shifting attention and quickly sprinted low into the brush covering the slope ahead. He was well out of sight and still moving silently as the men fanned out and, rather belatedly, scanned the land surrounding them to check that Danny had obeyed his orders to come alone. Two South American, two Caucasian, four Hawaiian, Steve judged. Even from his hidden distance he took in the familiar bulk and rainbow tattoo of one of them. Muscled, hard and all of a type. Dangerous.

Steve had been trained by the best, to be the best and even the birds seeking shelter remained undisturbed as he pushed on, slipping through and under and over whatever lay in his path. Their timing _had_ to be perfect..._On my way, Brah...I'll be there..._

Danny scanned the hillside ahead but didn't dare move his head to look closer as he passed along the track and once he saw the building and the men waiting, his attention was only ahead.

"Hey Soda!" he called without turning. "Nearly there, Man. It'll all be over soon." It seemed like he should at least keep the guy informed. Considering what he was about to do to him.

He drew up twenty meters from the V formation of waiting heavies. Cutting the engine, he blew out a breath but didn't hesitate. He'd seen the darkened Jeep inside and drew the same conclusion as Steve had.

_Hold on, Baby..._

Stepping out, he adjusted his loose shirt over the Kevlar..._not gonna make it too easy for you bastards..._then waited, the rain soaking him in seconds.

From the gloom of the building, two men stepped out into the gray of the day, hunching slightly against the weather. Their appearance hit Danny like a punch in the gut, twisting it with a hatred so strong he felt he could spit it out and throw it like a rock..._I'm going to smash you..._

Kahumoku smirked as he waved for Danny to come forward. The slighter, younger figure of Pedro Fuentez stood a little to the side, a little aloof, and watched without expression.

Danny moved to the rear of the car and lifted the back. Soda's wild begging eyes stared back at him and he shook his head desperately. He had to admit he felt sorry for the guy but grabbing him, Danny hauled him up and out, carefully adjusting the dark blanket that he'd draped over his shoulders as he stood up.

He could feel Soda shaking against him as he pulled him in close and rested his gun hand on his shoulder. Then, with the end of the barrel of his Sig automatic pressed under Soda's jaw, they began their slow walk towards the building.

From his cover, Steve watched their progress and made his own move as six of the men also returned to the building. The two left outside to keep a watch missed seeing him make a dive behind one of the vehicles, then creep silently along its nearside to angle behind them.

Danny didn't see it either but he felt Steve's presence, with a certainty that had grown from their time together, first as reluctant partners, then as a trusted team and now, most importantly, as friends. He knew in his heart that Steve would be there. He _had_ to be there.

Danny moved his captive to the center of the building's darkness as the hired men fanned out in a wide arc around him. Kahumoku stood in front of the Jeep, Fuentez at its rear door.

"Ah Detective Williams...So nice of you to come." Kahumoko had to shout above the clanging of the iron cladding. "And you've brought us the gift we wanted too."

"I want my daughter."

Danny's voice carried clearly. Hard as steel, it cut through the background din.

"I want my daughter. And my brother...That was the deal."

He was poised with feet braced apart, rigid and alert to the slight movements of the men around him but centered on his task. All the confusion and whirling emotions of the last few days had faded. He was in the eye of that storm now and his heart pulsed hard with purpose.

He watched as Fuentez opened the side door and stepped back.

After a moments pause, Matt stumbled out with Grace pressed tightly to his side.

Danny felt the quick burn of tears of relief and blinked hard once to hold them back. His eyes met his brother's and a lifetime of trust was reinstated in an instant. Pain and fear shone back at him. Regret too, but most of all Danny saw determination. Thinner than when he'd last seen him, beaten and scared, but Matt was there for Grace.

His gaze dropped to his daughter when she squirmed against her uncle to twist her white, terrified face towards him, her eyes wide with terror and tears.

"Danno!"

_Oh Gracie, Baby... _At her cry, Danny's own voice nearly failed him but he swallowed hard and called back to her.

"It's gonna be okay, Monkey...you're going home, I promise, Baby...it's going to be alright."

It was wrenched from him and grated painfully through a throat that seemed to have closed up. A tiny nod to Matt and he saw his brother turn her head into his side once more, stroking her hair as he whispered onto the top of her head. Danny longed to be doing that himself, hurt with the need of it. He couldn't tell the words but was so grateful for the comfort that it offered.

"How sweet!" Kahumoku sneered.

Fuentez moved up. In his mid thirties, his was an athletic build, fine boned and well groomed. He held a quietly superior air and seemed somewhat out of place in this company and yet completely unfazed by it.

"Just get it done," he ordered, nodding to the .42 Berretta the Hawaiian held.

_Make some time...Give Steve his chance.._

"Yeah, you're good with the orders, right Pedro?" Danny called out tauntingly. "Was it you that ordered my brother to be tortured? Or for Soon Li to be killed?" He took brief pleasure in seeing the surprise that flashed on both the men's faces at what he knew.

_Oh yeah, I know it all and it will end you..._

"What did the guy do to you, huh? Did he see something he shouldn't, see too much?"

"Nah," Kahumoku snarled. "He talked too much ...just like you."

Fuentez stared hard at Danny and there was a flash of realization in his eyes. Danny had watched this pair on many occasions over the weeks, photographed them and trailed them. He'd always kept himself well out of their sight but now his determination was there for all to see.

"As for your brother there...well, he wasn't much use to us, even _with_ his all his fingers," Fuentez entered into the conversation dismissively. "He really doesn't have the stomach for the business."

He looked over at Matt with disdain, nodding at his bandaged right hand, black with dried blood and held protectively up against his front, his elbow protecting Grace's head. "Now of course, he's even less use ... can't write all those zeroes."

Kahumoku snorted at that and his tattooed goon even looked a little proud..._Sure, laugh it up...I'll be coming for you too.._.Danny fought to contain his temper, still intent on buying valuable seconds, as Fuentez went on.

"Oh, and Detective... I thought you knew, I'm an accountant."

"Yeah? Well you made a pretty lousy calculation throwing in with Mr Over-Eager there. Whoever it was that pulled the trigger, you're both implicated, you too."

"That's not my thing - I don't kill people."

"Oh sure...Not by shooting them, or slicing their throat maybe," Danny conceded. "You have plenty of friends in the cartel to do that for you, don't you. But you're part of the filthy business that feeds them drugs until they crawl away and choke on their own vomit in a dark corner. You facilitate it. And that's just about as bad in my book."

Danny looked around to catch Rainbow's eye before turning back to Fuentez.

"Oh...And by the way...my brother's left handed, asshole."

Inching through the shadows, Steve couldn't help a smile at his partner's ability to wind people up. It certainly had an effect.

Kahumoku raised his arm and pointed his gun straight at Danny's chest.

"You know, Williams, you've become a problem to us," he pointed at finger at Soda. "But right now not as big a problem as _him_. So, let's just do this."

Danny stepped back slightly and Steve held his breath. It was a calculated risk, Kahumoko could simply give the order to kill them all, right there, right then, and be done with it. They were relying on the men's greed, counting on them to value future business over more murders that would attract unwanted attention, assuming they would try to keep Danny under control through further threats to his family.

Soda though, would have to die. He knew it too and when Danny separated himself from his side he released a high keening whine, that rose above even the noise of battering wind and rain.

"Know what? People tell me I'm an obstinate kind of guy. My partner says it all the time. Says I'm difficult sometimes." Danny's shouted tone was a strange deliberate mixture of conversational and wicked. The men around him heard it and tensed further as he continued.

"It's true, I guess I can be a little...loud...at times. So, yeah, I've got your guy here, but it's not going to go down the way you think."

He stepped further back and with the quick flourish of a master magician on an Atlantic City stage, he pulled the blanket off Soda to leave him standing, trembling and alone, before them.

Matt's hold on Grace tightened at the sight of the quaking man but also of his brother. He'd never seen quite that sort of feral grin on Danny's face before.

"You can take him," he growled. "But he'll be taking you with him."

Soda took a stumbling half step forward, whimpering and snuffling behind the gag. It only took a moment for his audience to register his strange shape, the clearly identifiable blocks of C4 attached to him, the wires and the red numbers flashing on his chest.

Soda Martinez was a walking human bomb.

**5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0**

_You were right, _Chin thought, as he took in the scene. When Steve had called en route to his own rendezvous, he'd warned the rest of the team they would have to move fast, there was no choice..._Just us then... _

From his crouched position below a window at the side of Rachel's expensive home, Chin peered quickly inside before ducking down once more. From her position at the next window along, Kono checked too, then watched his hands and noted their silent signals of communication.

Yes, Rachel was inside – a captive – held at the back of the room – two men in sight – one towards the rear, the other to the right – I'm taking the lead, you cover me.

Kono turned to Ed Kipton at her side to confirm he'd also registered the instructions. The agent nodded his grim understanding and they both looked back to Chin in readiness.

Five seconds.

Gripping their weapons tighter they prepared themselves.

Three – two – one.

As Chin swung the heavy base of a garden sprinkler against the window, shattering it in an explosion of glass and noise, Kono and Kipton rose up and fired side by side.

Shots blasted back but as a shape darted away, Chin leapt inside while Kono and Kipton stood firm and continued their rapid fire.

The second man had taken cover behind the kitchen breakfast counter as Kono broke off to follow her cousin over the ledge. She hit the floor rolling and came up against a low coffee table still covered with Grace's colored pencils and drawings. More lay scattered about on the floor, swept off in an earlier struggle.

Glancing up, she saw Rachel, tightly bound to a high backed chair. A towel was tied around her mouth and her dark eyes were wide with terror as she drew her shoulders up against the blasting gunfire around her.

Kipton was still firing, sending up splinters from the wooden cladding and Kono saw the man hiding behind it slowly backing away. Her angle on the ground gave her a chance and she took it. Her bullet caught him in the shoulder and he spun back against a cupboard, bringing a stack of saucepans crashing down too.

The fierce gunfight in the kitchen echoed through the hallway as Chin ducked back and flattened himself against the wall of the ornate staircase, listening for further movement in the house. A slight sound drew him towards the next room. A gun muzzle was rising in the gap at the side of the door and Chin threw himself forward to bring the hard edge of his hand down on the weapon. Darting around the door he pressed his own gun hard up against the man's temple.

"Don't. I really cannot miss from here," he ordered.

All the fight drained away as his opponent's cross-eyed gaze was drawn up to the weapon pressing between his brows. Chin kicked his gun away and quickly cuffed him, then, forcing his prisoner ahead of him, he rejoined the others.

Kipton was already on the phone calling for HPD and an ambulance while Kono struggled to undo the rope around Rachel. With her freedom came a mother's hysteria.

"They took Grace...yesterday afternoon...came in...just took her...I couldn't do anything...Grace...Oh God, my baby...Grace..." She was hyperventilating and sobs wracked her body.

"Rachel. We know," Chin assured her. "We know..." His gentle words brought her up short and all strength left her.

Passing his man to Kipton, Chin helped Kono lower Rachel onto the sofa and quickly passed her a glass of water. Her hands were shaking so much, it slopped onto her lap. Tears spilled down her face as her stark eyes pleaded for reassurance, for the answer she needed to hear.

Chin cupped his hands around hers and hoped he wasn't wrong to give it.

"Danny and Steve are getting Grace back right now."

**5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0 **

The prospect of imminent death is a sobering thing and the digital countdown on the improvised explosive vest gave everyone there just enough time to consider it.

Five seconds.

Eyes widened and feet shuffled as the men glanced at each other. Their bosses. The numbers.

Three – two – one.

Like a starburst, they flung themselves away, scrambling for cover with urgent cries of fear and warning.

Danny and Steve were ready.

In a fluid movement, Danny launched himself at Soda, knocking him flat and rolling over the top of him.

"Stay down and get to cover," he growled as he rose and sped towards where he'd seen Fuetez and Kahumoku melt into the darkness. Keeping his gun level as he dodged, he squeezed the trigger again and again and again at anything near him that moved.

In contrast, Steve chose his own marks precisely and, bursting from the shadows behind the jeep, downed two men with four shots shots. Head and chest. Head and chest.

Matt spun around as the men fell right beside him and Steve was immediately by his side, grabbing and turning him and scooping Grace up, in one lightning move.

"I've got you Grace, hang on," he told her as she latched onto a limpet hold around his neck and wrapped her legs tightly around his waist.

"Go!" he ordered Matt. He was still stunned by the speed and noise of events but it was not a voice to ignore and he ran ahead as Steve turned back to take further aim.

"Don't look, Honey..." he whispered and used his chin to force her head down into the crook of his neck. He was vaguely aware of the wet warmth of her tears on his skin but his shoulders were a protective shield even as he leveled his gun and fired once more. She didn't see the spray of brain matter that splattered against the side wall.

Further back, Danny was drawing fire – just as he intended. The men were moving fast now that they realized they'd been taken in and he was their main target. He made sure of it.

Darting out from the cover of a metal shelf unit, he made a dash for another but changed direction when one of the Hawaiian's appeared from behind it, blasting at him gangster-style with a stiff arm and sideways hold.

Sprinting towards a stack of packing cases piled in the corner Danny kept up his firing. Keeping a subconscious tally of his shots, he had no time to slam in a new clip but instead dropped his Sig and grabbed a second from the small of his back as he skidded behind the nearest crate. Without waiting he pushed his weight against the stack and the rest toppled with a satisfying crash. He took four more shots and doubled back, zig-zagging towards the Jeep with bullets passing so close he heard the zap as they flew by.

Stuttering muzzle flashes splintered the gloom, eerily lighting the faces of too many attackers like black and white battlefield snapshots. The noise was deafening, as gunfire added to the crashing of the wind whipped metal building itself.

Matt was nearly at the doorway now, but dangerously silhouetted for those who heard Kahumoku's shout and spotted their escape attempt.

"Down!"

Again, Matt instinctively obeyed and a bullet pinged off the metal where his head had just been. The shooter quickly took cover too, as Steve unwound Grace's grip and plopped her down to send a volley his way.

In turning, Steve took in the scene behind.

Soda Martinez was moving on his belly along the floor. Hindered by the vest and his tied hands, he resembled a beached pilot whale, lumbering up a shoreline. But, as Steve had noted once before, he moved surprisingly quickly for a big man and was apparently going unnoticed thanks to Danny's barrage on the other side of the shed.

Steve's rapid sweep found his partner next, crouched low and still shooting..._Christ... he can't do this much longer..._Even as he registered that certainty he saw Danny jerk back, thrown violently against the hood of the Jeep as a bullet slammed into his chest.

The blow was hard and robbed Danny of his breath in a white flash of panic and pain but even as he felt it, he fought to stay upright ..._Wearing a vest...wearing a vest...only a bruise...not dead yet..._

Twisting with the momentum of his fall, he rolled and crashed to his knees, immediately trying to bring his gun up again but his right side wouldn't co-operate and his arm remained leaden with the shock of the impact. As he scrabbled for the weapon with his left hand, Steve saw him looking around wildly for the next attack.

Their eyes met for an instant. Steve at the doorway, crouched in front of Grace and Matt, Danny at the center of everyone else's deadly attention. Their look held just long enough...

"_You get Grace out. That's it!" _

Danny had called it and Steve had accepted the terms. In his career he was used to taking orders in operations where he knew the consequences may be terrible but this sacrifice was too much..._Danny!_

Grace's scream pierced the doubt that consumed him as a ricochet snapped next to them and Steve knew he _must_ move. He had to hold to his promise for Danny's sake. For Grace. Lifting her again, he pushed Matt ahead and they felt the shock of wind and rain slashing at their faces as they ran, low and fast, for the safety of distance.

Danny saw them go and felt a triumphant jolt of relief and gratitude. It was the last thing he registered before his leg exploded in burning agony, and he dropped like a stone.

He cried out as the white light obliterated his vision once more and he could only sense an approach while his head swam with the pain.

_I was right..._Danny thought, with bleary satisfaction_...It's all me now..._

"No! Don't kill him...bring him...we've got to get out of here."

The voice was distant but the rainbow was clear enough as it delivered a blow to his head that sent him into darkness.

Outside, without breaking stride, Steve blasted at two figures firing from the shelter of the parked vehicles. One man screamed, arched back and fell against the equally limp body of the other but as he reached the tree-line, he registered the silence that had fallen behind him, the quiet of the building where he'd left his partner.

"Go."

Steve glanced over the top of Grace's dark head to Matt and saw fear that matched his own.

"I'll take her," Matt's voice was weak and shaky, but his arms were strong as he reached out for the little girl and looked back to where he'd left his brother.

"Go," he insisted.

Steve nodded once and pointed to a labyrinthine tangle of fallen branches twenty meters in. "In there. Keep down and don't move until I come back for you." Then he was off and running again.

Hurdling over the bloody body of one of the Hawaiian gun men, the roar of a powerful engine was all the warning he got before the black Jeep tore out of building. He threw himself sideways to avoid being hit, rolled and rose up onto a knee to take aim at the vehicle as it threw up a cloud of spray and sped away, disappearing in the sheeting rain.

The Camaro was too far away, the red hatchback would be too slow, Steve couldn't follow ..._and I need to know.._

He peered into the shed with dread. The bodies of five men lay scattered inside, contorted and still. Danny's was not one of them. Even as he registered the fact of his absence, Steve struggled with his feelings about the connotations ..._Not here._..N_ot dead?_..._Still hope... _

That hope leapt when a tiny sound sent him racing to an ancient rotted tarpaulin heaped up against the base of the back wall. Pulling it back, his heart dropped and he knelt down to meet a gaze, sightlessly glazed with shock. The sharp smell of urine hit him he studied the huddled, rocking figure.

"Danny _did_ tell you it was a fake, Soda," he said, as he first patted, then grabbed a trembling shoulder. "Now, come on, I haven't finished with you yet."

**Tbc...**


	10. Chapter 9

** Chapter 9**

* * *

><p>Danny cried out when he was hauled out of the car. He couldn't help it. His leg was on fire, the pain pulsing through him, hammering at him, with a ferocity that left him gasping. Right thigh, bullet still in there. Still bleeding. That was about all he could register amidst the swirling colors of agony.<p>

Consciousness had come as he was doubled over and pressed onto the floor at the back of the jeep. It had blossomed from his leg, building and growing and spreading as he clutched at the wound in desperation but his arms were held tight now as he was pulled forward. A bloody trail followed him.

Eyes clenched against the pain, Danny couldn't make sense of where he was and was only vaguely aware of what was happening, as rough hands ripped away his over shirt and vest, he was chained and then hoisted up by the wrists.

Another cry was wrenched from him as his arms took the strain of his body weight and the pain that had been pressing on his chest, where the round had hit during the gunfight, soared.

Men's voices, angry and urgent, hissed orders and snapped instructions. There was movement all around but as he hung at its center, with his feet barely even brushing the floor, Danny could not hear what was being said over the whooshing sound that filled his head.

"Six hours? How can it take six hours?"

Fuentez was furious. Furious at the mess of what had just happened. Furious at the loss of one of his men. Furious at the need to flee the island before he could wrap the Cartel's dealings properly, and at his continued reliance on the man he blamed for the whole fiasco. Frightened at what it would all mean for him.

Kahumoku raised placating hands as he paced back and forth with agitation.

"Look, you want out of here? It'll take that long to get a suitable boat here and I need to get my people organized, get us a crew, get us the right papers. There's a lot of water between us and the mainland...we can't just take to a raft and hope nobody will notice when we pitch-up on the west coast." His voice rose as he walked until he came to a halt in front of a workbench cluttered with tools. With a frustrated roar, he swept them all off.

His two remaining men stayed quiet and waited alongside their Colombian counterpart. They'd seen their boss angry before and knew what he was capable of. Now he was backed into a corner and he was desperate.

Kahumoku had been ambitious all his life – had seen what the wealthy of the islands had and wanted it for himself. He'd started out legitimately enough but. driven by a love of power and greed, he had always known the best business was dirty business. That's where the money was and he followed it. Now though, all that he had worked for, all of his hopes for a lucrative future, all of his life in Hawaii, was over.

He had to make plans but he was having trouble seeing past the chaos of what he was losing. Money, power, a luxury home, all the trappings. He needed to ground himself, to take back control.

His eyes fell upon Danny.

**5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0**

HPD responded immediately to Five-0's call for assistance. Professional jealousies and suspicions were gone when Steve briefed a room full of twenty senior officers, including Chief Malea, about their targets and aims. Chin and Kono drew up and explained the detailed layouts of their destinations.

Three locations, to be hit simultaneously – Big Island Flowers, Wikiwiki Cars and the port. Other raids would follow but these must happen soon.

No time for subtlety, over eighty police officers moved in at midday. Kahumoku's people, those involved in the illegal side of his businesses, had no time for resistance. Most of his muscle were missing from their usual duties anyway, some already lay in the morgue.

A few shots were exchanged when officers, working with the Port Police, moved into a warehouse on the waterside, but it was short lived. Chilled boxes of fresh cut flowers were ripped open and by the end, it looked like there had been a parade.

Steve took the call and nodded in satisfaction at the reports of hundreds of weapons discovered amongst the latest shipment of blooms and of a dozen expensive cars whose interior panels were found to be packed full of cocain.

It was good news but it was a distraction. The raids would continue but Five-0 still had to find Danny.

**5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0 **

Kahumoku was a sadist. It didn't take Danny long to realize it, just a look at his face, as he drew a box cutter slowly across his chest. He took his time and licked his lips as Danny's blood welled up in the line of the slice, brimming then running down his front to soak his tee-shirt.

He wanted Danny to scream.

_Well, fuck you!_

It was a battle of wills but Danny was a stubborn guy. As he felt the initial burning sting of the blade, he gritted his teeth and held in any noise as the pain spread out from the long cut.

Kahumoku raised his eyebrows in expectation then smiled again as he walked around behind Danny who tried to follow him with his body, to keep him in sight. Glancing about and above him with an awareness now sharpened by the new pain, he registered the pulley system that had him suspended with his arms each chained above him separately. Judging by an upturned boat hull that took up one end of the shed, the mechanism was designed to hold far greater weight than his. There was no chance of escape and apart from his head, he couldn't even swivel.

"Do you know what you've cost me, Detective?" Kahumoku began. His face was next to Danny's left ear and he could feel his breath as he hissed into it. _"Everything_."

The next slice came quickly. A diagonal slash from the top of his left shoulder to his opposite side. "I had a good thing going, and you have ruined everything."

Another slice from right to left. Two cuts but one burning pain. Danny closed his eyes against it and when he opened them again, Kahumoku's face was just inches from his own, breathing in his suffering..._Oh yes, you're a sadist alright..._Danny swallowed back a jolt of fear at what he knew that meant for him and his mind grabbed for the one thing that was good about all this..._Grace is safe._

"You do know you're going to die here, don't you?" Kahumoku said. "But before you do, you're going help to minimize the damage you've done."

He jabbed the short blade into Danny's side.

"You're going to tell us exactly what you know."

Jab.

"What the Feds know."

Jab.

"What the cops know."

Jab.

_Grace is safe...Grace is safe...Grace is safe..._

The Hawaiian's dark eyes were glittering with anticipation as he gazed at Danny's body, deciding where he might slice next, when a phone rang behind him. He still had arrangements to make.

He looked down rather wistfully at the bloodied blade in his hand and back to Danny. With a shrug of regret he turned away but not before gesturing to someone else who's identity wasn't clear through Danny's blurring sight.

"Your brother screamed for us. Let's see if it runs in the family."

The deep, emotionless voice was familiar. Danny had heard it in the conversations they'd had over a different torture session. And there was that tattoo again. Danny's head rocked back as a fist smashed into his face.

**5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0 **

"Nothing at the airport and we've got a watch on all the airstrips. There's a PD presence at the private strips too and all the independents have been warned off." Kono summarized. Her head was spinning with the size and urgency of their task. There were hundreds of privately owned aircraft in Hawaii but all it would take was a helicopter and a field.

"The marinas too," Chin added. "But there are so many landing stages, jetties, bays even, where they could get a boat in and out. The Coastguard are on alert and ready to move if we get anything."

Steve had noticed before how Chin had an admirable calmness in a crisis. He remained still at the central desk while he and Kono prowled and circled to expend pent up energy that should be going into a rescue..._If only we knew where to look..._

Their update reflected the horrible repetition of the hunt for Danny the day before but this was so very, very much worse. Then, their fears were still suspicions, now they were backed by the knowledge that Danny was hurt, in the hands of killers and in terrible danger.

Matthew Williams was being treated in hospital. Having been blindfolded during most of his ordeal and with no knowledge of Hawaii, he had been unable to help pinpoint where he'd been held or where his captors might go.

_"Please...just bring him back safe...Please." _Steve had gripped Matt's shaking form and nodded. He couldn't bring himself to voice a promise or his fears. They were mirrored in Matt's eyes.

The police raids on Kahumoku's businesses had turned up nothing of his whereabouts. Having ordered surveillance and a lock down on a possible escape attempt by air, his boat hire business had been the team's next thought and their first stop.

The three of them had burst in through the smart glass doors of Crystal Seas Ltd and ripped through the glitzy showroom, offices and workrooms but there was nobody there, except a group of startled holidaymakers and two salesmen with typically bright smiles but no idea about the true nature of their boss's business, let alone a missing cop.

Danny's investigation was now spread out in front of them once more. For thirty minutes they'd been scouring his information for any place where Fuentez and Kahumoku could be holed up. It would have to be quiet and secure enough for them to stay while they arranged their next move. By now they would have heard of the collapse of their organisation. They would be desperate and that made them even more dangerous.

Steve slammed his hand down on the papers in front of them and elicited a frightened squeak from the one person they hoped might give them an insight.

"There's got to be something here that rings a bell, Soda. Somewhere you went or you heard of." Steve smacked his hand against the lists again. "_Some_thing, Soda. _Any_thing."

Soda was hunched over the desk and flinched at Steve's raised voice. He'd showered and been given a change of clothes and a meal when Steve brought him to the headquarters. His quaking had finally subsided and he'd dropped instead into glowering and muttering.

_"They were going to kill me...insane...he tied explosives ...a bomb...insane..."_

Now he was picking at his chewed nails, twisting plump fingers while fidgeting and still twitching a little. Stress had not improved his appearance. With his hair still damp and flattened and his face mottled, he looked as though he should be in an asylum.

Steve accepted he may have been through an ordeal and had, at first, even attempted some vaguely sympathetic noises but his patience had run out even before they arrived back at Five-0.

_"It was a fake, man...didn't even have detonators. C4 is a very stable explosive..."_ To the former SEAL that was reasonable enough. He fiddled distractedly with the digital alarm clock that had been set to countdown and still couldn't bring himself to feel sorry for his passenger.

The guy was a petty criminal who'd climbed into bed with major felons and paid the price with a bit of trauma..._Okay...a major trauma.._.But, while Steve had been impressed with his partner's initiative and a previously unknown knack with electronics, he still felt awe over his control and unfailing adherence to his own set of principles.

_You're a better man than me, Danno...Christ, where are you?...Where the hell are you? _It seemed to have become his mantra in the past forty eight hours. He couldn't believe how this had all snowballed so badly so quickly.

"I told you, I don't know." Soda's whine broke into Steve's thoughts and brought him back to the present. "I didn't even go to the boat hire place, I don't know anything about boats."

"We searched all the boats and the dry dock at the marina. There's a couple rented out that are still to be traced, but there's a lot of sea out there." Kono voiced the others' bleak concerns. She held her arms tightly around herself as she paced, trying to keep her emotions in check as well as her team mates. Trying to keep her fears at bay.

"Nothing in there about fitters? Maintenance? Any contractors?" Steve demanded.

Kono and Chin both shook their heads – they'd been through all this before.

They were assuming Fuentez and Kahumoku would stick together, try to escape together. If they had split, they would have an even harder time finding them. Finding Danny.

"Algae."

Three faces turned towards Soda.

"What?" Steve demanded.

"Algae. There was a problem with algae. On a propeller." Soda looked up at them. "On Kahumoku's ex-wife's boat. It was in her, you know...settlement, or something. The guy was ranting about it one time 'cause she was threatening him with lawyers n'stuff and he had to get it cleaned some place."

"Where? Where is it, what's the name?"

"Don't know...No, really...I...I don't know," Soda stammered nervously as Steve loomed over him.

Chin grabbed a box file and began rifling through. Flinging it aside, he pulled another and passed one to Kono.

"It won't be in the businesses – it'll be in the domestic stuff that Danny logged."

"I haven't seen anything on an ex-wife," Kono said as she searched. "Did he go through all of her connections too?"

Steve tapped into the computer files that Kipton had sent them.

"It's here...Candy. Got an address." Steve felt his adrenalin pumping with the discovery. He turned to Soda again. "No mention of where she kept it? Who was doing the work for her? The name of the boat? Anything?"

"There's a photo here," Kono cried, "Candy Kahumoku... Married to him for four years. There's reports here from a hospital...looks like he used to beat her up...he's vicious." She shuffled through a couple of pages, still amazed at the amount of work Danny had put in, at how he had tracked so much. "Look, divorce papers...He must have paid her off...The boat's on the list...'Sweet Candy.' That's the name."

"Oh yeah," Soda nodded slowly. "Yeah...that was it..."

Steve hissed in frustration as he continued in the same vague manner.

"I remember him saying he was going to 'sink Sweet Candy'...'send her to a grave in the waves off Leeward,' he said...I thought he just meant he was going to kill his ex, you know?"

Steve stared at him in disgust over the apparently easy acceptance of such a threat.

"Well, he didn't do it but, I mean, I'd already seen him off Soon Li so..."

The explanation broke off as he was pulled upright and forced backwards, only stopping when he crashed against a wall.

"Yeah, you saw that didn't you?" Steve shouted in his face. "You saw it, and if you'd told us about it in the first place, we wouldn't be in this mess, you miserable piece of..."

"Steve!" Chin jumped forwards to grab at Steve's arm as it rose to land a blow and forced him to look at him instead.

"We've got to keep it together, Man," his hold was iron hard but his advice came softly.

It was several moments before Steve slowly relinquished his hold on the sweating Soda and blew out a breath, his chest still so tight with anger and anxiety.

"Sorry...I know...It's just..." he shook his head.

Chin nodded his understanding. Steve had been at that shed with Danny, had been there to see for himself the kind of people who now held their friend, to see the blood stain on the floor. It was driving Steve crazy. He was a man of action and now he felt helpless.

Chin still gripped his arm hard but now inclined his head towards at Soda.

"Look, he said _Leeward_, right?" With his steady gaze, Chin forced the former SEAL to concentrate once more and was relieved to see Steve's troubled eyes clear with realization as he gradually claimed back his usual control.

"You're right...why would Kahumoku say that?" He nodded. "It's quiet over there...maybe the ex keeps the boat there. Maybe he'll try and use it...It's the best lead we've got." Grasping his friend's shoulder he gave a grateful squeeze and then pushed him away.

"You're with me...we'll head over there ..."

Turning at the door, he called back to Kono.

"Contact the ex-wife. And see what you can find on anyone who cleans boats over at Leeward...If she kept the boat over there, maybe she found somewhere local to do the work."

**5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0**

Danny could feel the blood clogging his throat. Blood from his broken nose and split lips. He swallowed convulsively, then gagged at the metallic taste. His head lolled forwards and he watched drops falling on to the floor, adding to the red puddle already there.

While Kahumoku enjoyed inflicting pain, his muscle man simply saw it as his job. And he was good at it.

With each blow came a question. _Who'd talked?_ Pain exploded across his face when a fist crashed against his cheek bone and all he could see were bright white flashes in the smear of crimson.

_What did he know about the guns? _A kick landed deep in his gut and robbed him of his breath. Another above his kidney..._What about the Cartel? _He was still arching backwards when the next volley powered into his midsection..._Who?...When?...What?... _Side, back, head, face.

Danny lost all sense of how long or how many blows. They came so hard and fast he couldn't prepare himself for the next and, hanging like a piece of meat, he was unable to curl away from the ferocious onslaught.

At first he tried to keep some composure, to look up at least, searching for something or someone to end this.

"You really...gonna kill...a cop?" he whispered as his attacker briefly rested his knuckles and chose his next target. A slimy trail of bloody saliva hung from his mouth and he spat it as hard as he could. "Th..they'll h-hunt you down."

Kahumoku laughed from the other side of the room, watching Danny's beating even as he demanded favors over the phone from anyone he could contact, offering payments and bribes to the interested, and violence to those who weren't.

Danny's right eye was swollen shut, and his left open only a slit but he shifted his bloody gaze towards where he thought Fuentez stood, remaining apart and silent. Fuming and fretting.

"B-better tell ...your...f-friends in the...cartel...to look out, P...Pedro...'cause...th-this is gonna...land in their ...back y..."

His words were smashed back into his teeth as Rainbow landed another vicious blow to his jaw.

Danny had always used words as a means of attack but now he could barely form them. His fading consciousness brought instead just a spinning jumble of thoughts, fears and intentions,bursts of events and meanings in terrifying, disorientating and splintered flashes ..._Help me...Steve...Gracie...gonna die...Matt ...failed...please ...stop... _

The certainties he had clung to before were slipping from his reach now. He clawed for them again but his bobbing head couldn't hold on to them any longer and he felt the edges of blackness creeping closer..._Grace?... safe?...abducted...tortured...safe?...gone...dead?_

Danny was drifting towards oblivion and he longed for it. His breath came in strangled gasps and he wished he could just pass out. When Rainbow aimed a hard kick at the bullet wound in his leg, he finally did.

**5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0 **

The Leeward side of the island was known for its quiet back roads and gentle bays. Beyond its one luxury resort, it was only lightly populated with those who generally eschewed excitement. The Camaro's swerving, gut rolling progress sent people and animals scurrying out of its path.

Sliding into the skids and spinning out of the mud tracks, Steve handled the wheel deftly and noted from the corner of his eye that, where Danny should be sitting, ranting and gesticulating madly over his mad, _you-crazy-SEAL-do-you-have-a-death-wish_ driving, Chin remained resolutely silent as he gritted his teeth and gripped at the handle over the door.

After one wasted inquiry at the first boatyard Kono had sent them, they were already on their way to the next when Chin took another call.

"Got it," he snapped. "Kono found the wife..." He broke off as the car hit a bump, took off and landed with a jolt that had their heads hitting the roof. "Inlet...two miles north...Mo'o's Boat Services..." his speech was broken up by the speed and bouncing of the car and he grabbed at the dash as they hit a huge puddle and a brown tidal wave obliterated their vision. Steve gripped the wheel tighter and flinched not at all.

"She says Kahumoku knows it, he's been there..."

"Get the coastguard to..."Steve began.

"On it..." Chin waved his phone in Steve's direction and gestured to him to keep his eyes on the muddy road.

**5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0 **

Where it had been blood, now it was water. Danny was drowning in it, gasping and spluttering for air that couldn't bypass the torrents filling his throat, suffocating him. Kahumoko had a new toy.

"Waterboarding...I've always wanted to try it."

Directing the spray at Danny's face, he bent down a little to get a better angle.

"Not _quite_ right, I know, but this will do pretty well," he laughed. "Don't you think so, Detective Williams?"

Danny tried to shield his face from the powerful blast of water but it was relentless. Tucking his head behind his arm, he tried to create enough space to gulp for air but the deluge hit his temple and when he gasped with the shock of it, he inhaled more of the flow.

Kahumoku wielded the high pressure water spray gun like a saber, thrilled with the impact of his novel weapon. Having discovered it at the side of the boat shed he'd dragged it to stand a few feet in front of Danny. With the flick of a switch, the machine howled into life and, setting it on a wide spray to start with, he turned the fan of water to hit Danny with the force of three thousand pounds per square inch.

It felt like a kick in the face, but it didn't stop.

Danny squeezed his eyes closed instinctively, even though one was already completely swollen shut, but the water forced its way through the lids, filling his mouth and nose and into his straining lungs. His shoulders wrenched as he tried to twist away, flinging his face from side to side, up and back, anything to grab a tiny breath but even finally hanging his head down, the torrent simply blasted relentlessly on, slamming against him, cascading down the sides of his face and blocking off all oxygen.

Danny's heart pounded with the panic of asphyxiation. His chest burned with the strain of sucking and sipping for air through lips he hardly dared open for fear of more water filling every gasp. Gagging and choking, he blew out instead, trying to force the water away, but he couldn't replace the last of the air he expelled and his lungs screamed with their need.

Kahumoku watched him drowning with a malicious smile then released the trigger of the spray gun to inspect the jet's nozzle. One twist and the track of the jet was changed to rapier thin. A spiralling concentrated cone directed at Danny's body.

"They use this thing for taking the paint off boats – just think what it'll do to you."

It was like being cut over and over again. As the water moved off his face, the moment of relief at being able to suck in a breath with a desperate whooping gasp was immediately overtaken by intense pain, as Kahumoku aimed the barrel end and played the high velocity flow over his torso like a blade. From neck to waist, Danny felt as though his skin was being flayed. When his torturer held it in one position, it felt like it was drilling right through him.

He cried out with the pain. Gasping and tugging down with his body weight against the chains that held him, he desperately tried to angle himself away from the slashing, whipping water but he was losing all sense of himself. Now he couldn't take a breath beyond the agony and his world was spinning in crimson and white..._nomorenomorenomorenomore... _Then blackness.

The sound of Danny's last strangled gasp was lost in the thudding clatter of a helicopter. Its reverberations bounced the air and rattled the windows and the men rushed to grab their weapons and peer out.

Kahumoku spun around too, only to find a gun leveled directly at his head. Lax fingers let the jet drop in surprise as he registered the bitter, cold eyes of a man, finally ready to kill.

**Tbc...**


	11. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10**

* * *

><p>Steve and Chin split left and right, ducking low under the covering noise of the coastguard chopper that hovered overhead. Steve had asked for a diversion and he got it.<p>

**"This is the United States Coastguard. You in the building, put down your weapons and come out with your arms raised...I repeat...This is the United States Coastguard..." **The amplified voice bellowed its orders over and over again.

It was enough of a warning. Steve raised a booted foot and kicked in the door. Chin was at his side amongst the splinters, firing in from the wall's cover as he threw himself into a roll that ended with a shoulder charge into the nearest startled gunman, who was still only just turning away from peering out of the window. Steve powered into his gut with a move he hadn't used since his footballing days. The Hawaiian doubled over and flew through the air backwards just as his old opponents always had. His weapon was flung from his hand and Steve landed a kick to his head even as he passed towards the next threat without breaking stride.

A shot swung Steve and Chin's attention to their left.

In the middle of a gunfight, that one shot and that one sight seemed to freeze the world.

Danny strung up, Fuentez holding a gun. The sharp retort had cut through all the other din.

"No!" Steve was firing even as he shouted. Even as he registered the dead body of Kahumoku still going down, crumpling at Danny's feet, the Hawaiian's eyes open and staring and bearing a look of surprise.

Steve's shot caught Fuentez high in the shoulder and spun him but he stayed upright and raised his hands.

"Don't!" he screeched. "I killed him for you...Kahumoku...the fool ruined everything, this whole thing...it was all him..." He pointed to the body on the floor and shouted. "He was torturing the cop...I stopped h..."

Steve's finger hesitated on the trigger of his Sig, but then Fuentez's face exploded outwards. A spray of blood and matter flew towards him, along with the round that had done the damage. Ducking as it zinged past his ear, Steve adjusted his aim by a hair and, fired at the dark shape that had risen from the boat hull behind the now toppling corpse of the Cartel accountant.

Chin's aim was only slightly slower and where Steve's drove a neat hole into the center of the man's forehead, his tore through his gun arm, splitting the spectrum right between yellow and green and plowing on into his chest. Kahumoko's right hand man was momentarily suspended, then spreadeagled when he hit the wall, before sliding, slowly, out of sight.

A crash from their right and two more simultaneous shots brought a sharp cry from the side and Chin ran to disarm the last gunman as Steve raced to Danny.

For a moment he didn't know what to do. Where to hold him. How to help him.

He hung motionless, blond hair now a dark and dripping curtain partially obscuring his face as his head tipped forward. Chin on chest, blood was still trickling from his mouth and nose, mixing with the rivulets of water that trailed down his broken features.

What parts of his tee-shirt that weren't in torn strips, clung to his wet form, masking some of the sources of the blood that was turning it to a diluted pink all over. But only some. Where the shirt hung in sopping tatters, cut by a knife then shredded by the force of the water, Steve could see slices and lacerations and bruising. Raised red welts criss-crossed the planes of his torso and back as though he'd been lashed.

His jeans too were ripped. Much of the blood that had coated his right leg had been washed away but the wound there was now wide and gaping, the flesh and muscle as frayed as the dripping denim.

"Danny," he gasped. "Oh God..."

_Pleasepleaseplease.._.He was still breathing, stuttering and shallow ..._Oh Danny.._.Steeling himself, Steve raised a hand towards his partner's face, his fingers carding into the wet strands.

"We've got you, buddy...It's over, we've got you..." Looking up at the chains wrapped around Danny's bloody, torn wrists, he knew he couldn't manage by himself.

"Chin Ho!"

The gunfight over, Chin was cuffing the last man when he heard the anguished cry. He turned to see Steve with his arms wrapped around Danny's chest, supporting his weight and nodding at the pulley mechanism. He was murmuring encouragement as Danny's bloody face pressed against his shoulder.

Chin leapt to a lever on the wall and released the tension of the chains then helped to gently lower Danny's arms, unwrapping the links from hands left blackening and swollen, as Steve held him up.

"Let's get him outside...Come on partner, we've got you, man...I've got you..." Steve kept up his calm litany as they finally lifted him down and away from the bloody pool beneath him. Stepping over the bulky apparatus of the now silent jet spray and the two bodies of Fuentez and Kahumoku, they splashed through the red rivers which spiraled away across the floor, and carried him towards the bright sunshine that had finally broken through outside.

Steve carefully lowered himself and Danny to the ground as Chin turned to radio for help, gesturing his signals to the Jayhawk still hovering over the inlet. He pulled his partner in close when it slowly dropped down towards a field behind them. It would be the quickest way to get to a hospital.

"We're gonna get you out of here now...Hold on brah...It's over Danny, you gotta hold on, it's over now..." The words spilled out of Steve in a low whisper as he shielded him from the downdraft. Resting his hand on his chest, he could feel Danny trembling, his breath coming in labored, stuttering gasps, as his injuries and shock took their toll.

The panting rasped into a guttural groan and Steve looked up to his face. Only his left eye was open and then only a tiny, glazed slit but it was enough for Steve to see panic and desperation in the bloody redness there. He couldn't speak but Steve instinctively knew what Danny wanted, what he_ needed_ to get through this.

"Grace is safe," he said. He leaned in close and pressed a hand against one side of his face, frightened to touch the puffy mess at the other. "She's safe Danny. You saved her. You hear me? Gracie's safe. Matt's safe. You hear me?"

Ten minutes later, when they finally lifted off with Danny aboard, strapped to a stretcher and muffled with insulation blankets, Steve was still desperately hoping that he had.

**5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0 **

Danny was in surgery for six hours. The bullet was easily extracted and the cuts, though deep, were not life threatening in themselves but the beating had been severe and the wounds had all been worsened by the high velocity water.

Steve listened to the doctor's explanations but already knew too much.

As a SEAL he'd used high pressure water jets as precision cutting equipment – he and his team had been well briefed on the damage they could do to a body. With the capacity to cut through steel, some could even have the same effect as a high velocity missile. Steve remembered only too well a video they'd been shown of the flesh of a joint of meat being stripped from the bone. It had been intended as a warning. In the boat shed, he'd seen the jet gun used against Danny, he knew it wasn't of the same specialized or military caliber to do that kind of damage, but it had been of industrial power, far more than the domestic equipment to be found in most peoples' garages. Steve knew the implications.

A large amount of water can pass through small holes, damaging tissue and nerves and organs. Danny's condition would surely worsen before it got better. Weakened by the beating, blood loss and shock, and suffering from the effects of nearly drowning, Steve could only hope it _would_ get better. It was hard to believe it when the team finally got to see him.

Danny's body bore the horrifying evidence of what he'd gone through. The bruising was blooming now. The whole of the right side of his face was swollen red-blue and although they'd reset his broken nose, the bridge was split. The top of an oxygen mask rested just above it, its elastic straps stretched over hardly recognizable features.

The puffiness of his eye and cheekbone was moist and livid and a loose line of stitches stood out in stark relief against the tight, stretched skin. His mouth beneath the mask was also distorted by the swelling. The color of the bruising only emphasized the translucent paleness of the rest of his face.

"We're keeping him sedated, he's going to be out of it for quite a while," the consultant explained. "It'll be better for him that way." His manner was straight forward and experienced. Recognizing the professionalism of his audience but also their deep concern for a colleague and friend, he delivered the facts simply and with authority.

"There's a danger of infection. Surgical debridement was necessary, especially on the bullet wound, of course, which had been opened up so badly."

Danny's right leg was propped up, the blankets bunched around the top to leave it bare. Steve swallowed back the sickness he felt seeing the wound in his thigh. It was clean now but still open, uncovered and gaping where the damaged tissue had been cut away in surgery. It looked like a scream. Seeing the wetness of flesh and muscle exposed in such vivid brightness made Kono gag and she put a hand to her mouth.

"But right now, it's more the water itself we're concerned about. That water was not clean, the place was not clean. There's a high risk of bacterial infection." He gestured to Danny's leg and then to the vile knife wounds that had also been left without dressings. "Open wound management is the best bet."

In ten years of medicine, David Morrow had never actually dealt with such a severe case before, only the occasional homeowner's injured foot caught by a jet spray while cleaning a driveway, but there were plenty of case histories and he was thorough in his research. He had even fewer illusions over the possible complications than Steve. "I'm sorry, I know it's a lot to take in."

He nodded next at the blackening mass of bruising that mottled Danny's chest beneath the sensors attached there to monitor his heart rate. Raised, inflamed welts showed exactly how the spray gun had been used and fired, the dozens of fierce, raw red lines blurred outwards. The circular impact of the bullet to the kevlar, then to his flesh, was darker but its black edges were melding into the overall blotchy navy hue.

"With the velocity used, there's a possibility of vascular and neurological damage." Morrow's voice was becoming a background hum to the team as they struggled to comprehend the implications of Danny's condition. "X-rays show pulmonary contusion and, as you know, he had water in his lungs so pneumonia is a risk too."

Chin took a deep breath. He could hardly believe Danny had survived. Shaking his head, he glanced over at Kono who stood with her hands to her face, in shock at what she was hearing and seeing. She was chewing on the inside of her cheek and he recognized it as her attempt to prevent tears. He reached out and drew her close, keeping a firm arm around her shoulders and feeling her fear.

Beyond her, Steve McGarrett held himself apart, rigid and pale. Chin wished he could offer him some comfort too but he knew Steve was coping in his own way. Soaking in the information, Steve was already preparing himself for the battle ahead. This time, instead of trailing in his wake he was going to be right there _with_ his partner.

For the next five days Steve barely left Danny's bedside.

**5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0 **

Danny was trapped in a nightmare he couldn't escape. He was caught in a vice that threatened to crush him from the top down, to squeeze his chest flat and stop his lungs working..._am I drowning?...there was water...can't breath..._He had no sense of time or place, awash with pain and terrified. He was on fire, tossing and squirming to escape the heat..._who's making that noise?...that moaning?._..Soaked in sweat, then shivering with cold..._water...I need water... I'm drowning in water...Please, I'm burning...in Hell...I'm burning..._Excruciating pains had him clawing at his leg and clutching his side with bandaged hands that pulled with needles, until a calm grip and a soft firm voice held him still and a wonderful healing warmth spread through his veins.

Finally, slowly, he became aware of flashes of faces and voices around him..._Come on Danny, I need my big brother. Danny, there's stuff we need to talk about, stuff I need to say. Important stuff_..._Daniel, please, Grace is so desperate to come see you, she loves you...Hey Brah, only you could nearly drown when you're not even in the sea...Come on, Danny, we've got surfing lessons to finish..._and always the most constant..._Hey, partner, time to stop this now. Take it easy, Danno, I got you... _

The voices became names, the names became memories, the memories became rungs that Danny clung to as he wrenched himself out of a cloying fug of confusion.

Steve was in his usual place, hunched over Danny, his hands on his, as a nurse supported him sideways, forcing him into the contortion to ease his breathing and overcome the difficulty of a leg still raised up on pillows, while changing dressings on his back. Once the doctors were confident that the terrible open wounds had drained, had spewed out the contamination that wrought such raging fever and weakness on Danny, they finally, thankfully, allowed them to be covered. While it was a relief to those who had sat beside him, trying so hard to avert their eyes from their horror, it also meant those dressings had to be changed regularly. And that meant a whole different sort of torture.

Weaned off sedation, even though he hadn't yet fully come around, Danny's face scrunched against the pain of bruises and breaks and sluggish contaminated lungs. Steve glanced up at the young woman.._.Nina?..._ and her colleague..._so many of them_... silently begging them to please _hurry up_, even as he assured his partner it was important. "Has to be done, gonna help you, man...not long..."

He was so tired of this. He feared he was running out of encouraging things to say, and his voice cracked with words that seemed to have little effect on Danny's suffering.

A stifled sob of a breath became another painful coughing fit. Steve laid a hand on his friend's shoulder as the nurses worked. The rattling of congested inflamed lungs had been the horrible accompaniment to his long vigil. He leaned his head down close to the blond hair to whisper his strength and saw wetness at the corner of Danny's blue eyes. Eyes that were open.

"Hey!...Hey, you with us?" Steve's face dipped level with Danny's against the white sheet. "You finally awake, man?"

Danny's brow twitched..._Is that sarcasm?..._ Steve felt his hopes rise as his partner's look told him he kind of wished he wasn't right now but, as he blinked back the betraying tear, Steve could finally see a new awareness there too.

Quickly and carefully, Steve and the two nurses eased him back into a semi-reclined position, and the gaze held. When one of the women went to fetch Danny's doctor, Steve realized that his hand was still held in a tight grip. They grasped each other firmly, both grounded by the other's contact.

"Good to see you, Danny..." Steve's voice crackled with emotion and exhaustion but he was cut off.

"Thank you."

It was a whisper. Barely a sound, mouthed and breathed. But amidst the growing hubbub of bustling staff, Steve heard it loud and clear, knew it, and when he stepped back to make room for the inevitable tests of Danny's apparent consciousness, the partners' eyes never left each other.

**5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0**

"You are kidding me! The guy is an idiot..."

"He says you tried to drop him off the roof of a buidling..."

"We saved his ass..."

"He says that was only the start...he says you threatened him in interrogation..."

"We did n..."

"That you refused him a lawyer..."

"He didn't even ask..."

"That you abducted him, gagged him, tied a bomb to his chest and offered known killers the chance to murder him."

"- -"

"Detective Williams?"

"Okay, that bit's true," Danny conceded with a rueful shrug. "But it wasn't a real bomb."

Steve laughed out loud at the excuse he'd used himself several times in his own explanations. Soda Martinez's lawyer swung around. No longer the expensive suit from LA, now Soda was left with a cheap local ambulance chaser who's taste ran more to seersucker and polyester.

"You think it was funny, Commander McGarrett?"

Steve moved forwards to the side of Danny's bed with his arms folded across his chest. "Well, not at the time, I guess, but I've got to say, _this_ is a huge joke. Soda's not getting any compensation out of us. Or Five-0. Or the State of Hawaii. But," he added reasonably, "I think the FBI _might_ offer him the chance of relocation if he turns over any other tidbits of information he may still have on the Cartel. It's probably the safest he'll be... So, you see, we have _some_thing to smile about anyway."

He picked up a weird looking coconut figure from the side and turned it over. Complete with a wild mess of husk hair, shells for eyes and a plastic lei, it balanced on a dried and varnished banana skin surf board, its leafy arms flailing in the air..._Thanks Kono, you're a real hoot..._ Danny had laughed when his friend had brought it in. It bore the phrase "Get Stuffed," surfing parlance for getting dumped on by a wave but now also happily appropriate to the unwanted visitor.

"Hey, Danny...should we give him this as a going away present?"

The lawyer took a last disgusted look at the men and left.

"Ha!" Danny laughed, then coughed harshly as still damaged lungs protested. Putting down the strange ornament, Steve automatically passed him a small pillow to clutch to his chest until the spell passed. It was a well practised routine now.

Sitting back again, Danny nodded his gratitude and grinned up at his partner. He was still weak and his face and body still bore the now yellowing bruising but the swelling had all gone, the stitches had gone and there was a brightness in his blue eyes that Steve had missed.

"So?" He prompted. "You gonna tell me, or just leave me guessing here?"

Steve smiled broadly. "Six arrests in Hong Kong, four in San Francisco, four in New York and the Feds are confident of the leads in South America too. Success all round. _And_ they found another consignment of Mach 10's that were heading this way to be delivered via your friends' flower operation," he fingered the bunch of cottage roses that stood on the windowsill. It was one of many. Grace was thrilled by the colorful look of the room - a mix between a florist and a luau. Since the raid on the flower export business, a steady stream of police officers had delivered armfuls of the blooms. Danny knew they'd come from the search but appreciated the gesture anyway.

"Yeah, well, nothing says I love you like a bolt action machine pistol, I guess."

"That's all you, Danny." Steve cuffed his arm lightly.

Danny shifted to straighten up against the raised bed, wincing slightly at the stiffness and aches that still restricted him, even after three weeks. David Morrow, his consultant, had told him there was still a long journey of physio therapy ahead to get full mobility back into his shoulders and leg and he'd been ordered to exercise his hands to counter the neurological damage of being strung up. At least that came naturally to him..._yeah, the team really enjoyed that one._

Waving away Steve's words, Danny was serious now.

"Not all me, Steve...You, Kono, Chin," he had his palms together and punctuated each name with a thrust. "You came through for me...you all did. We'd never have got the rest of Kahumoku's businesses, all the Fuentez connections on the mainland, those cartel bastards, without what you've done these last weeks...What you've done for me after I...when I..."

Steve shook his head at the change of tone and Danny stopped himself from going any further. He still struggled with his emotions at times. He'd been assured it was a natural reaction to his ordeal but he found it embarrassing and those close to him did all they could to spare him. It was unnecessary.

His recovery was far from over and his team, his friends... _my ohana_... would see him through it. Steve had shared the extremes that his condition had engendered, all the highs and the distressing lows of what they'd experienced. Danny knew he could never repay him but neither man wanted to wallow in any more angst. Clearing his throat, he swallowed back further unspoken gratitude..._Damn SEAL, with his sneaky superhero ways, knows me too well..._

"'Course, it's like I'm always telling you, it's all down to good old fashioned police work. See you, Steven, you think that it's all about the _big _gestures," he said, making one himself with his hands now wide apart and expansive.

"What like strapping a dummy bomb onto a perp?" Steve interrupted. "Oh, and pack-rat Kamekona says Hi, by the way... says he's cleaned out his arsenal like you told him to."

"Always with the bomb! Why do you always have to bring up the bomb? Yes, I owe the Big Man for that but, like I keep telling you, that was a necessary move which came _only_ after months of meticulous care. The kind you, in all your usual gung-ho army glory, like to ignore..."

"It's Navy, and wait..._you're_ lecturing_ me_ now? After what went down? You know, there's a quote that the military uses...something about vengeance having no foresight? Napoleon Bonapart, I think... _You_ are the one who ignored..."

"Oh nice! Make a sizeist jibe at the guy in the hospital bed, why don't you!" Danny shuffled in agitation.

"I'll admit that I might have breathed in too much of your macho, go-for-it, tendencies. That it may have affected me a little, but I didn't ignore anything. Where in all my background information... information I believe you used to bring down a weapons smuggling ring, a drugs smuggling ring, a multi million dollar international criminal business..." Danny was back to the chopping motions. "Where did you see me ignoring anything? Kipton said it was my 'old fashioned police leg work,'" Steve grimaced at the use of Danny's dreaded air quotes, "that was giving them a lead on something they'd been too distracted to do for themselves. And that my friend," he pointed a finger at his partner, "that is why you should always listen to what I tell you." Danny finally had to stop his rant as he ran out of breath and was left wheezing at the effort it had taken.

"You finished?" Steve asked. Danny raised his chin in final defiance. "Good, 'cause you know, I promised your daughter I'd go pick her up and bring her for a visit, and I think it was today not in a week."

He hesitated at the door. "And hey, Danno..." He turned to see Danny smiling back at him. "...You're welcome."

**5-0 5-0 5-0 **

* * *

><p><strong><span>Thank you<span> so much to everyone who has been following this story, reading and reviewing - I love to hear your thoughts.**

**Tbc... **


	12. Epilogue

**Epilogue**

* * *

><p>A dark runway at a private airfield. An expensive jet warming up its engines, its door open at the top of the waiting steps, sending a shaft of beckoning yellow light into the night.<p>

It was a mirror image of another farewell but this time... "This time it's gonna be alright."

Matt clasped Danny's shoulders as he addressed him with confidence. "I'm gonna be okay, Danny. It's all sorted, like I told you. The Feds have a place set up for me. They seem pretty excited about the few people I met in my short and pathetic criminal career. I'm going to be a better informant than I ever was an outlaw, Danny. I promise." He raised his right hand where a wide leather strap was fixed like half a glove over an unnatural space, giving him the look of a poor man's Michael Jackson. They'd even joked maybe that should be his new assumed name. "You wait, I'm gonna finger them good, bro," he grinned.

It had taken some persuasion but the FBI had allowed Matt to stay in Hawaii until Danny was out of hospital. With a constant guard, he'd been around to support those first painful steps and to make his emotional explanations, begging his brother's forgiveness, accepting the inevitable tirade, then able to bask in their renewed closeness.

Now Special Agent Kipton was waiting at the top of the staircase to take him into full witness protection. "And thanks to your Governor's recommendation, I won't be charged with anything." He squeezed Danny's arms. "Just like we said, give it a while and I can be in contact with you again...with Mom and Dad...and Gracie." He raised his hand again and waved at the little girl holding tightly to Steve's hand a few feet away.

She looked up at him questioningly, her feet fidgeting, her arm swinging with impatience. "Just give them a minute, Honey," Steve advised softly. "Your dad needs this."

He watched as Danny fumbled with his cane to return Matt's embrace and the brothers stood still like that on the tarmac for a few moments more. Clutching each other's faces they pressed their foreheads together. "Keep in touch," Danny whispered his order, then slapped Matt on the back and turned to call Grace over.

Steve felt the little girl's hand slip from his and watched her run, hair flying, into the arms of her father and uncle.

Danny waved the plane away, the family united even as Matt left for his next life. In another mirroring gesture, he slung his arm over his partner's broad shoulders. With Grace skipping between them, he was finally ready to get back to his own.

**5-0 5-0 5-0 **

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><p><strong>End<strong>


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